Hundreds Learn Plans to Expand 710 Freeway Threaten Their Homes

Residents who live near the Long Beach Freeway are lashing out at planners of a $4-billion-plus expansion proposal, accusing them of failing to notify hundreds of people in 12 cities who may lose their homes or businesses if the project is built.

The outcry mounted in the last six days as some residents obtained access to maps showing that the three designs under serious consideration could force the demolition of hundreds of homes and businesses along an 18-mile swath from East Los Angeles to Long Beach.

“It was a very visual slap in the face,” said Long Beach Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga, who estimates that several hundred homes in her district alone could be targeted.

In response to the criticisms, officials said Friday that they are significantly speeding up their efforts to publicize the project and will mail 35,000 letters to residents in areas that might be affected.

“We agree with the public response, and we’re going to try to correct it,” said Richard Powers, executive director of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, one of four public agencies overseeing a $3.9-million study of how to improve the freeway. The council has decided “to beef up the outreach because we realized the level of effort wasn’t enough,” he said.

Some homeowners are reeling after learning this week -- from neighbors, reporters and newspaper stories rather than paid outreach consultants -- that their homes sit in the “footprint” of three designs to expand the freeway.

Nearly 700 homes and up to 259 businesses could be acquired and demolished in Commerce, Bell Gardens, Bell, Long Beach and other cities, depending on which plan is chosen. That could prove one of the largest acquisitions of homes for area highway construction since the Century Freeway was built amid controversy in the late 1980s.

The estimates of homes and businesses come from material compiled by engineering consultants Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade & Douglas Inc., which is conducting the $3.9-million study.

As many as 10,800 people could be affected in some way -- of which 10,070 are minority residents, the engineering material reports. The high proportion of Latino and black residents is prompting charges that highway planners are ignoring minorities while they deal cautiously with neighborhoods such as South Pasadena, where plans for extending the 710 Freeway north have been stalled for decades.

“They do not think twice of double-decking 18 miles of freeway through communities of color,” said Gilbert Estrada, lead researcher for East Yards Communities, a group serving East Los Angeles and Commerce.

The three leading plans are Alternative C, which would expand major cross streets; Alternative D, which would add elevated bus and carpool lanes; and Alternative E, which would add elevated truck lanes.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials say that $569,060 in local, state and federal funds has been allotted by Parsons, Brinckerhoff to several consultants to promote “public outreach and consensus building” for the project. That effort started more than two years ago and has included numerous public meetings and forums, according to Consensus Planning Group, the lead outreach consultant.

The group organized six community “roundtables” last week in Carson and Commerce.

“I’m told that approximately 1,500 invites were mailed to every person or group that attended any kind of workshop, forum or briefing or hearing since the study began in January 2001, and to anybody who expressed a desire to participate in the process” via e-mail, letter or phone, project spokesman Phil Hampton wrote Friday in an e-mail.

Yet attendance was poor at several roundtables. Only three residents showed up at a Friday session in Commerce. None of the three received invitations, and learned about the session from a newspaper article.

Commerce could lose two of its four parks, Bandini and Bristow, engineering material shows.

Consensus Planning Group Vice President Joshua E. Getler said that, despite the poor showing, “we do our absolute best to get as many people as possible involved in these meetings.”

Some critics have questioned the work of Los Angeles-based Consensus Planning, which is known for helping developers secure project approvals.

Its Web site describes how it has promoted developments by major companies, including Home Depot and Ikea, by mobilizing supporters to speak at meetings.

The Web site includes a section on transportation projects that describes how it tries to bring government and citizens together to support a project. Of conducting constructive meetings, it says: “As experienced facilitators, Consensus Planning Group staff members are trained to minimize and control the disruptive behavior that sometimes characterizes large public meetings.”

Getler said that the group does not play an advocacy role with public projects such as the Long Beach Freeway, but instead promotes public outreach.

“In no way, shape or form is Consensus Planning Group serving in an advocacy role,” he said. He added that he is glad to see the current debate because it is increasing public awareness and discussion and will help guide officials in choosing a plan.

The current study is nearing a crucial point. Two panels of local officials are due to choose a plan in the next two months.

Planners are quick to point out that they would later conduct extensive studies of that plan. Federal and state funding, moreover, must be raised at a time when transportation money is scarce.

But residents express alarm that they were only starting to learn what neighborhoods might be affected just two weeks before April 23, when one panel of officials was due to pick a plan. That deadline has been extended, but both panels are still expected to make their decisions by June. Construction would not begin until 2011 or later.

Consultants say they learned only two to three weeks ago what neighborhoods might be affected. But Long Beach Councilman Val Lerch is skeptical.

“I know the people behind this said, ‘Let’s get the snowball rolling so fast that when the momentum’s there, we can’t stop the snowball,’ ” said Lerch, who estimates nearly 300 homes could be lost in the Coolidge Triangle area he represents.

Andrea Hricko, associate professor of preventive medicine at USC, wrote the MTA in February about a list of criticisms about the outreach, such as not posting agendas and minutes of the two panels on the Web. Most minutes of one panel are now posted.

She chides the MTA and Consensus Planning for letters sent to nearly 500 churches and elementary schools that talked about freeway “improvements” but failed to explain that plans could remove homes and place the freeway closer to some schools and churches.

The maps showing the proposed designs are superimposed on aerial photographs, and are large enough that rooftops can be distinguished.

But copies are scarce. They are currently available for public review at the Paramount offices of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments. The council hopes to get the maps posted on its Web site, www.gatewaycog.org.

No public hearings are planned before the two panels make their decisions.

Instead, the outreach effort includes roundtables as well as three open houses set for April 28, 29 and 30. The open houses will allow residents to speak one-on-one with project representatives. Formal public hearings would occur in 2007.

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Impact by city

Nearly 700 homes and hundreds of businesses could be torn down to make way for an expanded Long Beach Freeway. The acreage needed for each of three plans under serious consideration:

*--* City Alt. C Alt. D Alt. E Bell 23.6 28 37.7 Bell Gardens 8 11.2 35.1 Carson 1.6 7.9 0.4 Commerce 38.6 52.6 82 Compton 5.7 8.1 17.9 Compton area* 1.6 1.7 5.1 East L.A.* 13.5 36.7 18.5 Long Beach 69 89.4 59 Los Angeles 0 27.4 0 Lynwood 2.8 3 8.9 Paramount 6.8 6.4 5.9 Rancho Dominguez* 0.9 5.1 0.9 South Gate 10.5 9.3 34 Vernon 9.3 4.6 3.6 Total 191.6 291.4 308.2

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*Includes some county land as well

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Times staff writer Li Fellers contributed to this report.