The College notified your Board that they will not pursue obtaining rights to the dirt portion of Stocker Road and therefore have the right to construct what they want on that property. This is, so the College says, due to the lack of cooperation they received from Edison who obtained ownership of this parcel when the Stocker Street expansion (over the hill to La Cienega) was scaled back and removed from the Los Angeles Master Plan. Too bad we didn’t know about that because our ironclad (or what we thought was ironclad) written agreement with the College called for an earthen berm, which was to have been landscaped and managed by the College, was a pre-condition to the construction that the College so far has not been able to get started. Without the consent of Edison, the College says no place to put the dirt from their excavations so no berm. Your Board heavily contested the College’s position. While we are looking at alternatives, see below, the College is poised to start construction on its new parking lot anyway.
In addition, the College recently announced their next phase of expansion including an expanded football stadium and a new baseball stadium. They also want to expand into the 10100 Jefferson site that they acquired from the City to be developed in a public/private for profit partnership. This portion of the campus will be within the confines of the City of Culver City. They also want to enlarge the access and entrance on Overland. This plan includes a second multi-story parking lot.
As an alternative to the berm, the College is proposing various forms of both temporary and permanent sound walls. While placement of these walls is problematic, the walls ignore other goals sought when the berm was proposed by the College. These include neighborhood beautification, reduction of intrusions into the Crest from the College grounds along Stocker, noise and dust reduction and an open green space which could continue to be utilized by the neighbors. Alternately, the College proposed to close Stocker permanently and turn it all, including the asphalt portion, into a green belt, to erect a few minor small sound walls and to place some signage there. So right now discussions are being held with no really good alternatives in sight. Could litigation be a possibility? Come to the General Meeting on Wednesday, September 19th and have your say.
Culver Crest Neighborhood Association 