Black Monday in Sunland-Tujunga!
Today, Sunland-Tujunga awoke to its Worst Nightmare.
The beleagured Dept of Building & Safety and LA City Planning have issued permits for Home Depot to begin "Tenant Improvements" on the site of the former K-Mart in Sunland-Tujunga. After being presented with a mountain of evidence that the proposed Home Depot was indeed a "Project" deserving of environmental scrutiny, LA City Planning rejected the evidence and signed off on the plans allowing Home Depot to proceed.
Daniel Scott, the Principal LA City Planner who reports directly to Gail Goldberg
( LA City Planning Director) was the primary decision maker and the community now demands an explanation as to how he could possibly arrive at such a decision.
If you will recall, "Tenant Improvements" are normally just cosmetic upgrades to a building and as such, a business is not required to undergo environmental scrutiny.
In this case, Home Depot plans call for ripping out the entire floor, replacing it with reenforced concrete, and for major structural work to the roof, among other things.
A highly regarded structural engineer submitted overwelming evidence that this proposed project was anything but "Tenant Improvements" and yet Daniel Scott disregarded the facts and ruled in favor of Home Depot.
The community is obviously disappointed but the flood of e-mails to the No Home Depot
Campaign are also expressing extreme anger and outrage! A Public Demonstration is planned in front of the proposed location later this week.
The No Home Depot Campaign will also file an appeal with the Board of Commissioners
for the Department of Building & Safety.
If this is a sample of the direction in which Gail Goldberg wants to lead Los Angeles then
there are celebrations being held at the offices of developers around the city tonight!
For the rest of Los Angeles, we have our work cut out for us.
And just now, I have received a message from Councilmember Wendy Greuel;
Statement of Councilmember Wendy Greuel:
"I have vigorously opposed a Home Depot store in Sunland-Tujunga from
the beginning, and I will continue to work with Sunland-Tujunga
residents to find a solution that benefits the entire community.
"Toward that end, I have asked the City Attorney to review the decision
to issue building permits which would allow Home Depot to move into the
K-Mart building."
Posted by Unknown @ 7/24/2006 03:40:00 PM
24 Comments:
Going by Walter Moores recent comments about Home Depot in S-T we could have
done worse!
Archie,
Nevertheless, point painfully noted!
How many of you clowns will be shopping there, when it opens, and you find out you can get a new air conditoner for a few hundred bucks less.
Morons. Go fight Hezbollah if you're looking for an enemy!
5:08, you are the moron. The Sunland-Tujunga community is vehemently against a Home Depot going in that location. Home Depot has become S-T's Hezbollah!
5:08,
Can we get an air conditioner cheaper than from the other Home Depot that is only 7 minutes away?
I'm so so so tired of these spoiled rotten valley homeowners, these people of wealth only earned due to the scarcity of good housing in the area, protesting the installation of a consumer option that they themselves would avail themselves of in my neighborhood in a blink. But it's not "appropriate" for these fat-asses. It's depressing that the council is going to listen to these hideous monsters of spoiled brattery, and that the city attorney is going to twist the law to benefit them. Oh how they suffer these wealthy homeowners. Their "worst nightmare" you say? God, the entitled attitudes. And you, Mayor Sam, you buy into this crap. Get serious.
6:30,
Sunland-Tujunga Wealthy?
You need to get out more often, my friend!
Wealthy? no, it's called "false wealth", because the shacks that they live in have crazy property values that have been inflated by the housing market.
So S-T folks, maybe now you can focus on your real problems, like drug abuse and acoholism.
What?! I haven't said a thing about Home Depot!
How soon they forget....
At July 20, 2006 4:17 PM, Walter Moore said...
Home Depot is not the right business? The company is willing to spend millions and millions to build there. If not Home Depot, then who is the right business? Is someone else champing at the bit to build a factory, an office complex -- anything? Provided a business complies with zoning and construction codes, shouldn't we let the private sector decide what is the right business for a given location?
536 - its not the ST community, its you wackos who have no life but to sit on a neighborhood council or homeowner group. If every single person in Sunland or even a significant number opposed it, they wouldn't put it there cause no one would shop.
btw, most of the fat white trash in ST inherited their houses
This is a great day for Sunland! I am personally looking forward to getting a job at HD, and it will be close to my home and great for my family! I have lived here for years, and this is the best thing to happen in this town in a long time!
Let's celebrate!!
isn't it interesting how many people use this forum to display their ignorance and ungrammatical, illiterate slurs on the Sunland Tujunga area. This area has never been an enclave for the wealthy and has been consistently ignored by the City of LA for years. They continue to ignore the wishes of the people of the area. Allowing Home Depot in this location where traffic is already a problem (remember Mayvis Cole trying to get across Foothill Blvd. right next door?) is inflicting an industrial eyesore in our community. I already boycott Home Depot for their shady business practices and will continue to do so. Residents of this area would like to preserve the little bit of rural character that is left and would like a retail business in this location such as a general merchandise outlet as we do not have any for miles. We do already have plenty of hardware stores to chooose from. Home Depot here and in their other locations has no consideration for the communities they are located in. Their only interest is in sucking as much money as they can out of the community and sending it back to Atlanta. We will be left with the collateral damage of traffic, noise, congestion and the entrance to our community that is a blight with an unsightly orange box. Perhaps we could have some intelligent discussion on this topic instead of immature sniping.
Some of the respondents certainly have no clue between the difference between the East Valley (Sunland-Tujunga) and the West Valley. If you take a ride you might note that the wealthy homeowners are in the WEST valley and manage to get the ear of the mayor and council. Sunland Tujunga has always been a working, rural community, until it was in recent years allowed to be flooded with shoddy McMansions without requiring any parks, street improvements etc to compare with the lovely wide streets in the WEST Valley. It is a community that has been neglected by the City for decades. Most of our residential streets are over 60 years old and have never been resurfaced. And we are not taken in by Mayor Tony flashing his teeth and raising our trash and other fees, but still not speaking a word in our defense as they inflict the Canyon Hills (280+) homes on our hillsides, as they prepare to bulldoze the Verdugo Hills golf course for 250+ condos, and on and on ad nauseum. Residents are just being steamrolled by greedy developers, avaricious Home Depot, and opportunistic politicians such as our Mayor. And we DID not vote for him! So, before you are so cavalier, educate your self as to what you are commenting on!
Not Sunland-Tujunga residents, you and your friends.
if you want to learn more about Home Depot's shady business practices, just check out:
www.homedepotsucks.com
This is not just local problems, but nationwide. Do you want such an unethical business in any of our communities?
According to an economic study commissioned by the former STNC, the retail leakage from S/T is $190 million a year. That money "leaks" out of S/T (the City of Los Angeles) and in to Pasadena, Burbank and Glendale for things like UNDERWEAR and HOUSEHOLD GOODS that are unavailable in S/T. The City is being penny wise and pound foolish by approving a Home Depot for this 11 acres of prime real estate in a community that has the spending power and the desire to shop locally. If they can't think of what is good for S/T, then perhaps they SHOULD think about all the lost sales tax revenue. The former neighborhood council aponsored the Sunland Tujunga Vision 2020 initiative. WE know what we need. The City, is BLIND to our needs and apparently, their own too.
AND THANK YOU JOE, ABBEY AND PAULA FOR ALL YOU ARE DOING!!!!!
do people in Sunland even wear socks and underware?
No, we would wear sucks and housewear if we could find a way to spell it; oh, no, I mean a place to buy it!
That money "leaks" out of S/T (the City of Los Angeles) and in to Pasadena, Burbank and Glendale for things like UNDERWEAR and HOUSEHOLD GOODS that are unavailable in S/T.
With a Home Depot permitted, Tujungans can bypass the whole region, and send their money straight to Atlanta.
Oh, I guess I did say something about Home Depot. But that was so last week! And a different thread, at that! Anyway, given how many brain cells I lose each day, I'm lucky to remember how to get home. My apologies, and thank you for the reminder.
For heavens sake, Walter, how can you be so sure of all these fascist remarks that you let fly in every direction and not remember the subject matter?
Perhaps you should lay off whatever it is that is burning up your brain cells or stop being the so-called pundit that you think you are. You sure don't have any idea what is happening to us in S-T.
If you can still drive and you can figure how to get out here to our rural suburb, maybe you should get into your car and come out and take an up close and personal look at our reality.
Joe and the No to Home Depot folks would be glad to show you the ropes, although you are already close to having enough rope.
"Rural suburb?" Good Lord, you folks are deluded. S-T is maybe 20 minutes from downtown Glendale at rush hour and 30 minutes from downtown Pasadena.
S-T may have been in the sticks when you or your parents bought there in 1968. However, with the Santa Clarita Valley one big project away from build-out and development in the Antelope Valley starting to encroach on Edwards AFB, it's hard to call it "rural" anymore. "Suburb," sure. "Rural?" Uh, no. Think of the mountains as an impermeable barrier like the ocean, not a porous edge of countryside.
Do you know how many horses there are in Sunland? Me either, but there are lots and we intend to keep them. May Chatsworth rest in peace.
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