Council Delays Demolition of Carwash With Surprise Order : Developer Told to Prepare Environmental Study on Mall

A Studio City carwash won a reprieve from the wrecking ball Tuesday when the Los Angeles City Council ordered a developer to draft a detailed report explaining how replacing it with a shopping mall will affect the environment.

Amid a flurry of last-minute lobbying and temper flare-ups, the council voted 10 to 3 to require developer and landowner Ira Smedra to prepare a costly environmental impact report, which freezes his plans to build the mall for nine months to a year.

The decision will cost Smedra between $750,000 and $1 million for a report that he predicted will discuss problems “that have already been addressed.”

Although the project cannot be built until the report is approved by the city’s Building and Safety Department, it does not prevent Smedra from closing the carwash and evicting the restaurant operators. He said he has given the tenants notice to vacate the property by Sept. 1.

“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to put a chain-link fence around the property,” Smedra said. “The buildings will be vacant, but the structures will have to remain.” He vowed that he will continue to fight to build his mall.

Delaying Tactic

Council members who opposed the report said that the request for the report was a delaying tactic pushed by homeowners who don’t want a shopping center in their neighborhood. They said that requiring the report was an abuse of the city’s environmental review policies.

But Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the area and introduced the motion, argued that the proposed project--a $15-million, 53,000-square-foot shopping mall--could “dramatically change the character” of the neighborhood by causing a “serious negative impact . . . .”

He said that “a major project of this scope should absolutely be subject to an EIR.”

The decision was the first victory for nearby homeowners who failed last month to thwart the mall’s construction by asking the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission to designate the carwash, adjoining gas station and coffee shop as a cultural landmark. The unusual request, which the commission denied, brought national and international media attention to the businesses at Laurel Canyon and Ventura boulevards.

‘We’re Ecstatic’

“We’re ecstatic,” said Jack McGrath, a leader in the neighborhood effort to preserve the corner. “Now we have time to sit down with the developer, study the issue and come up with a new proposal.”

Smedra said he was disappointed in the council’s decision. He said the homeowners are using city processes such as landmark designations and environmental impact reports to delay his plans.

The report must follow a state-mandated outline that requires detailed studies of a project’s adverse effect on items such as traffic, noise, pollution and aesthetics and then propose solutions to the problems. It also must show alternative uses for the property.

Residents have turned the issue into a mandate to save their neighborhood from large developments, which they claim bring intense traffic to their already congested streets. They say their Studio City community is fond of the 28-year-old carwash topped with three 55-foot-tall, boomerang-shaped steel beams.

An indication of the intense feelings over the project took place in a corridor outside the City Council chambers when Smedra flushed red and sternly told homeowner leader Ann Day that “your group is infringing on my economic rights.”

“Your group is infringing on our community,” Day said.

At the council meeting, members voted first to skip making a decision on the issue and instead send it to the Planning and Land Management Committee for further study. This would have freed the developer to continue with his plans until told otherwise. But Wachs pressed Councilman Gilbert W. Lindsay, who first voted to send the case to the committee, to ask the council to reconsider.

Council members Gloria Molina, Richard Alatorre and Joan Milke Flores voted against the measure, which still must be signed by Mayor Tom Bradley.

“I believe this measure is just as bad as the measure for a historical designation,” Flores said. “What I hear is that the homeowners want to make use of the EIR to delay the project and get what they want . . . I don’t believe we should use the process like that.”