Trying to Bridge Differences : Venice: Heated debate over how to fix crumbling canal walls has gone on for two years. But there’s hope on the horizon.

Homes on the banks of the Venice Canals are fetching prices in the $750,000 range, but the quaint waterways that provide the area’s charm continue to be “fixer-uppers.”

As cottages that once lined the banks are transformed into fancy remodels, the crumbling walls of the canals seem all the more forlorn as they wait for their own face-lift. And wait. And wait.

Though long in the works, rehabilitating the canals has been stymied by a variety of disputes, ranging from environmental concerns to financial matters.

There are six waterways remaining in what was once a system of canals envisioned by Venice founder Abbot Kinney, though these were dredged by another developer. One resident described the canal area, between Washington Boulevard and Venice Boulevard, east of Pacific Avenue, as an urban oasis, albeit one in which the waters have grown murky and the banks are disintegrating.

For almost 25 years, city plans to restore the canals have been repeatedly drawn up and then shot down.

The latest delays in the rebuilding project involve an acrimonious two-year debate between property owners and Venice-area Councilwoman Ruth Galanter over what type of concrete blocks should be used to rehabilitate the canals--a battle between brands known as Loffelstein and Armorflex. And although that may sound like nothing more than a tongue twister to an outsider, to a majority of canal property owners, it means beauty versus the beast. It means war.

Hostilities between the councilwoman and the Venice Canals Assn. are set out in an exchange of sharply worded correspondence with each other and with other residents of the canal community.

The association, which claims to represent 200 property owners (there are 350 properties in all) have accused Galanter of taking an Armorflex or nothing-at-all stance. The association strongly opposed the use of the Armorflex blocks for aesthetic reasons. And according to their poll, about 70% of property owners along the canal oppose the Armorflex plan.

Galanter has said the choice of blocks is not a beauty contest.

“Of course, Ms. Galanter doesn’t face the specter of waking up every morning to the cinder-block horror of Armorflex,” fumed a letter to canal property owners from the association after a rancorous public meeting late last year.

Galanter has fired her own written salvos, dismissing the group’s aspersions on her as “hogwash, pure and simple.”

In an interview, Galanter insisted that she has not cast her lot with Armorflex. “I have no brand loyalty whatsoever,” she said. “My job is to represent my constituents and to uphold the laws . . . and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Despite the harsh words, there appears to be on the horizon a perestroika by the Pacific. Canal association leader Mark Galanty, a major critic, now talks of a “a new beginning with Galanter,” a shift in the relationship that apparently began when a consultant was hired by the property owners to intercede at City Hall.

Galanter, too, acknowledges a thaw in the feud, which she attributes in part to new property owners in the area who have taken a more conciliatory tone with her by asking for help, which she said she was all too happy to give.

Some of them even came to her fund-raiser, Galanter said, though she, too, credits the consultant with convincing hard-line canal property owners that she was not to blame for derailed plans for the canals that were one step from fruition when she took office.

A large part of the neighborhood’s unhappiness with Galanter can be traced to what they perceive as her role in the cancellation of one canal rehabilitation plan that had the backing of her predecessor, Pat Russell. After many earlier battles on if and how the canals should be refurbished, property owners had voted for an assessment district in which they would be charged for repairs to the canals.

The city had signed off on a plan for vertical concrete walls, and the matter was on the agenda for the Coastal Commission, when it was suddenly discovered that the canals were subject to environmental protection as a wetlands area, even though they are made by humans.

That, Galanter explained, meant a vertical bank was unacceptable because there was no way that protected organisms could cling to it and the Coastal Commission staff had recommended against it.

Galanter said canal property owners wanted her to use political muscle to push the project through, but she declined, preferring to withdraw the city’s application and come up with a plan that was environmentally sound.

This is where Armorflex came on the scene, after it was suggested by the Coastal Conservancy, to whom Galanter had turned for help. Armorflex is a blanket of interlocking concrete blocks tied together by cables. Parts of the blocks would be hollowed out to allow for native plants and organisms to grow.

A test site was launched to see if a planting of pickle weed and salt grass would succeed. The first planting didn’t take. The second was eaten by the canal ducks (the bird most people associate with the area is considered domesticated and not protected).

Finally, wire was placed over the blocks to protect the tender new shoots, and Galanter planning deputy Jim Bickhart was spotted by residents wielding a garden hose in an attempt to get things moving.

At one point, canal association leader Henry Colman reports, the anti-Armorflex faction was accused of sabotaging the pickle weed by drenching it with a toxic substance in the dead of night. The charge proved groundless, Colman said.

Galanter, meanwhile, was accused in a letter from an association representative of caring more about pickle weed and salt grass than about her constituents.

As the debate rage, Armorflex became the look the neighbors loved to hate. They disliked it enough to shop for a substitute--Loffelstein or Loffel Block. Loffelstein is a series of log-like concrete planters that weigh more than 100 pounds each. The planters are stacked on top of each other to form a retaining wall.

A city study has found Loffelstein to be a close second to Armorflex in safety tests, with no substantial differences found. However, Galanter said, Armorflex appears to be easier to repair. In a press release issued last fall, Galanter pronounced Armorflex as “safer and less expensive than other materials and will do the best job of protecting the environment.”

But now, she is assisting the Venice Canals Assn. in getting the approval of the Coastal Commission for a Loffelstein test site, to see if it passes muster with the pickle weed and salt grass seeds. The test, if approved, is expected to take up to another 18 months.