By Jorge Casuso
March 31 – Santa Monica’s powerful tenants group has informed regional transit officials that it “strenuously opposes” a plan to place a maintenance facility for the proposed Expo light rail line across from apartment buildings in the Pico Neighborhood.
Calling it a case of “environmental injustice,” Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights (SMRR) warned that the facility would have “many intolerable impacts” on the surrounding community, which is the city’s poorest and most ethnically diverse.
“SMRR strenuously opposes the development of the Maintenance Facility at the site currently owned by Verizon on Exposition in Santa Monica,” SMRR Chair Patricia Hoffman wrote in a letter to the Exposition Light Rail Construction Authority and Metro Transit Authority.
“The facility there would cause severe noise and other burdens on the nearby residential neighborhood especially the community of low and moderate income, ethnically and racially diverse renters who are directly across the street from the Verizon property,” Hoffman wrote.
The letter, dated March 27, questioned whether transportation officials adequately gauged the impact of the proposed facility or explored alternative sites.
“SMRR recommends that the greatest priority be given to the criterion that an industrial facility such as this should be located non-adjacent to residential neighborhoods,” Hoffman wrote.
The facility, SMRR said, would cause “noise and vibration, traffic, and pollution” which would destroy the peace of the neighborhood.
The Draft Environmental Impact Report’s (DEIR) suggestion that a sound wall be erected and some residential units retrofitted with soundproofing and double-paned glass “constitutes an intolerable imposition on an established residential neighborhood,” SMMR said.
“Maintenance operations would proceed day and night,” the group wrote. “Three eight-hour shifts, with up to seventy workers each, would be entering and exiting the facility by automobile, and the yard would hold as many as 36 light-rail cars at a time.
“The DEIR explains that the significant noise from high-pressure washing of the light-rail cars will be essentially continuous.”
The noise would be most intense at the southern edge near the high-density blocks that boast a concentration of seniors and children who “would lose sleep, be unable to concentrate, and suffer reductions in the quality of residential pursuits and enjoyments,” according to the letter.
SMRR officials are also concerned the facility would snarl traffic in a light industrial area that is home to one of Santa Monica College’s satellite campuses, as well as a center for large entertainment companies.
The facility also would release hazardous substances into the soil, and possibly the sewage system, and pollute the air with “hazardous fumes” from idling vehicles caught in traffic.
SMRR suggested that Expo officials locate the facility on publicly owned property adjacent to or near Bergamot Station without displacing the Bergamot Art Center, which has become “an irreplaceable cultural resource for the region and should be preserved.”
