EIR FOR SYLMAR SHELTER WAIVED FASTER APPROVAL MAY BE POSSIBLE.

Byline: TROY ANDERSON Staff Writer

Los Angeles County officials have waived a potentially lengthy environmental review for a proposed homeless shelter northeast of Sylmar that would house as many as 80 families from Skid Row, officials said Tuesday.

While the 78-acre site in Lopez Canyon still must obtain a conditional- use permit, the move means the shelter could open as early as next year.

``That EIR would have delayed us from nine months to even a couple of years,'' said Andy Bales, president of the Union Rescue Mission, which bought the site earlier this year.

``Instead, the (Department of Regional Planning) agreed with us that we should be exempt from a full EIR because the use is so similar to the previous use at Foresters Haven.''

But news of the waiver for the Hope Gardens Family Center shocked some Kagel Canyon residents Tuesday.

``Our concerns as citizens are numerous, beginning with the fact we have so many facilities like this in a five-mile radius,'' said Brian Gavin, president of the Kagel Canyon Civic Association. ``We are just concerned about an overpopulation of those types of facilities in our area. It's not a fair burden to put on this population.''

The Union Rescue Mission borrowed about $7.5 million earlier this year to purchase the old Foresters Haven facility on a remote site adjacent to the Angeles National Forest and the former Lopez Canyon Landfill.

Officials have said the campus will be used as transitional housing for up to 225 people, about 27 percent of whom landed on Skid Row after living in the San Fernando or Antelope valleys.

Bales said he would like to move homeless women and children now staying at the mission downtown to the facility, where they would get services to help them get back on their feet.

It would include 23 elderly women, who are already at the facility or in the process of moving there, 50 mothers and 153 children.

Of an estimated 1,600 homeless women and children now living on Skid Row, Bales said he has about 400 at the overcrowded downtown mission, and two or three families have to share rooms.

A safer environment

In line with the goals of the Board of Supervisors to move homeless families off Skid Row, Bales said families would have their own rooms at Hope Gardens and would be in a safer environment.

``Outside our doors on Skid Row, even though it's getting safer, we now have 400 registered sex offenders in a few-block area,'' Bales said. ``It's still not a positive place for kids to grow up, whereas Hope Gardens will be about as nice a place to grow up as you can find.''

In a letter to the mission, officials said the proposed Hope Gardens Family Center is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act because the proposed project will remain residential and will not increase the number of residents, employees or traffic.

``Local schools have also indicated that they can accommodate all school-aged children from the Union Rescue Mission,'' wrote Department of Regional Planning Director of Planning Bruce W. McClendon.

``It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the project would not affect the environment beyond the level considered when the facility was originally approved.''

The facility still must obtain a conditional-use permit from the Regional Planning Commission, which has set aside time at its April 4 meeting for a hearing.

Bales said the situation on Skid Row is an emergency and he plans to request a special hearing to be held soon.

``We are very hopeful something will be done so our women and kids can move by March,'' he said.

Both the mission and Kagel Canyon residents can appeal any decision of the Regional Planning Commission to the Board of Supervisors.

Tony Bell, spokesman for Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, said, ``We want to see a thorough examination of the facts and all the impacts on the surrounding community and environment.''

In a Nov. 15 letter to David Dow, chairman of Mission's board, Montana Knightsbridge, co-chair of the Kagel Canyon Preservation Committee, wrote that Kagel Canyon residents are not opposed to helping the homeless.

But Knightsbridge noted that 27 facilities in a five-mile radius of Kagel Canyon already serve 3,600 people similar to the ``clientele of the proposed Hope Gardens.''

``It holds too many risks for our community, which we are not prepared to accept, as well as, provides risks to these women and children that the (mission) and their clientele aren't prepared for,'' Knightsbridge wrote.

Karen McDivitt, a member of the committee, said many of the 700-800 residents of Kagel Canyon are concerned about fire dangers from people smoking at the facility.

Shelter concerns

McDivitt said some also are concerned whether the shelter will be staffed appropriately, whether older children will be allowed, whether property values will be affected and whether homeless people will be walking the streets.

Bales said he has met with residents eight times and has tripled security at the facility, added video cameras, flameless lights and special ashtrays for those who smoke.

He said he has promised that no men will be allowed and has set up a shuttle system so women and children can get to the bus station without walking up and down the canyons. And, he has offered to clean up trash in the area.

``We appreciate their scrutiny and questions, but there are some who just say, `We absolutely don't want it in our ZIP code,''' Bales said.

Longtime Kagel Canyon resident Cody Carter, 43, a teacher at Sylmar High School, said he supports the facility as transitional housing for homeless women and children.

``I think it's a really good place to bring them,'' Carter said. ``I would say the majority of residents here are indifferent about the whole situation, but there are a few who are very vocal.''

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

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