Three years ago:
1. Tierra Concepts, Inc., a construction company, planned to tear down a house at 9823 Regent St. (between Hughes and Watseka), pictured below.
2. Then it would carefully maneuver an existing eight-unit building from somewhere else and and stick it on the lot where the old building used to be.
3. Finally, it would convert the eight units into four units and sell them as condominiums.
4. But before it did, Tierra Concepts had to go through a public hearing about "the appropriateness of the environmental clearance."
5. The hearing was scheduled for Thursday afternoon Sept. 15, in Van Nuys. That was 15.3 miles from the Palms address and, according to Google (which produced the map at left), an 18-minute auto trip through the Sepulveda Pass. (It would have been an 88-minute bus ride involving a transfer in Westwood Village.)
6. But the Representative Assembly of the Palms Neighborhood Council told the city Planning Department that it wanted the developer to appear before the Council to explain the plan.
8. It also resolved that it didn't want the hearing to be in Van Nuys but in West Los Angeles, or at least at the City Hall in Downtown.
Susan Palmas of the City Planning Department said at the time that the city often scheduled hearings in Van Nuys at the request of developers because doing so shaved 2-3 months off the approval process. Also, the parking was easier in Van Nuys than it was Downtown.
Since then, the city has not scheduled any similar hearings in Van Nuys. Hearings involving Palms properties have usually been held on the Westside or Downtown.
CHALK ONE UP FOR THE PALMS NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL.
What's more, the idea of moving a new building onto the property has been abandoned. A new apartment structure is now being built from the ground up.
