Question: What will you be doing between now and July 1?
“Trying to survive,” the feisty Mr. Surfas said.
“One reason I was able to get the building on Landmark is that it is in deplorable condition. I am going to have to do a great deal of improving on it. The building is from the 1960s. But it’s original. So I am getting a building that hasn’t been rehabbed in 40-plus years. I will have a lot of (information technology) work to do because the building isn’t wired for I.T. Even though there is a commissary in there, there are procedures I have to go through with the health department.”
Connie Sandifur, Mr. Surfas’ attorney, said that granting her client 30 days longer than the city wanted to use his National Boulevard warehouse is only proper. First, she said, City Hall has to satisfy, numerous requirements.
“Here is the truth of the matter,” Ms. Sandifur said. “According to their Exclusive Negoatiating Agreement with the city, (the developer) Urban Partners is supposed to provide monthly reports on what they have done and the progress they have made. This is a long-term process. They have been working, but they have not secured any of the requirements of the site. They have not secured MTA’s agreement to do this (light rail line from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City) as a coordinated project. They haven’t secured the fact it needs to be above-ground, and most importantly, they have not secured the funding to build the station (terminal), which is their obligation under the ENA.
“The point of this morning’s hearing, though, was not about whether the city should take the property but when they should. There is no good reason, none whatsoever to take it when they wanted to. That is what the court was saying. ‘You have shown no hardship, city, for taking this property (by June 1). Nothing is ready to be built. The city’s plans are not finalized. The tenants aren’t finalized. There is absolutely nothing looming right now that requires (the city) not to allow the Surfases to make an orderly transition.
“The city,” Ms. Sandifur continued, “wants control of the site. They want to make sure the Surfases are gone and don’t get in the way of the project. And the city is not being mindful of the fact that the Surfases, as property owners, have inherent rights. The court recognizes that. A hardship for the Surfases has to be weighed against a hardship by the city, and the city has no hardship. I think the city is being very disingenuous by saying they need the property this summer. It’s not true. They don’t need it. They want it. It’s convenient. But that is not enough to displace people. The power of eminent domain is awesome. It has to be used fairly. I don’t think it is fair to put people out when you don’t have to have it that way.”
Ms. Sandifur said the day yielded two important developments.
“The Surfases,” said the attorney, “have worked extraordinarily hard to find (a new location for the warehouse portion of their property) that will work. They found a place (on Landmark Street) we think will ameliorate much of the damage that will occur. That is a really good goal the court would like to see achieved. If the Surfases didn’t have a place to go (with their warehouse), the court wouldn’t have just extended out the time forever. The Surfases do have a place to go. The second piece of the puzzle is the city has no actual, physical need to have this property other than convenience. Ordinarily, you don’t go in (to court) the way the city has.”
Lawyer Argues Lack of Urgency
Ms. Sandifur said that she and her colleague Melanie Butts “represent a lot of condemning agencies, not just property owners. If we don’t have a deadline, a schedule, some sort of contractual obligation, that require we have the property, we stipulate they may remain. What is extraordinary is the city coming in here and saying, ‘push ‘em out,’ ‘push ‘em out,’ ‘push ‘em out,’ when they don’t have a need for this property. Why would the city not want to save money (regarding liability)? The court mentioned that (the Surfases) have $500,000 worth of perishable goods in the warehouse. That is just a small piece of it. Moving the Surfases. We are talking about a million-dollar issue to move them into storage for a temporary period of time. The city would have to spend something on the order of $750,000 to a million dollars — that is just actual cost — to put them into storage, aside from what we would lose. The city would be out three-quarters of a million dollars easily to put them into storage unnecessarily. The court told the city that (by its ruling), the city was saving money. What About Savings?
With the judge granting Mr. Surfas an “extra” 30 days of occupancy, from the city’s perspective, “I want to know why the city is in court,” Ms. Sandifur said, “if this ruling would save them $750,000? Why are they here.”
Bruce Gridley, City Hall’s attorney, said last week it was inappropriate for the city-Surfas case to have spent almost a year in a courtroom.
“Is it unusual that this has gone on for 10 1/2 months?” asked Ms. Sandifur. “The city wants control of the site. The Surfases represent control of 40 percent of the site. It’s easy and convenient to have all (of the mostly bought-out private property owners) gone at one time. It makes the city’s life easier. They don’t have to worry about it later. But just making your life easy is not a good enough reason to take a business that has been around a very long while and put them out.”
A Long Dry Spell?
Ms. Sandifur did not disclose whether she is a wagering woman. “I bet you the city does not begin construction on this site for a year and a half or two years,” she said. “They have a long way to go. We have a case against the MTA, where the MTA is taking the private property of another client. We are now two years in, and we have not cut a deal with them on anything. The court has ordered us to go back. We won a challenge to the right to pay. The court has ordered the MTA to go back and negotiate with us, and they are stonewalling us. This developer has to go to the MTA — which is notoriously slow and hard to deal with — to agree to all sorts of things in order to make this project move forward.
Going Underground
“Let me give you an example of something the city said in the earlier pleadings,” Ms. Sandifur said. “They said one of the reasons they need this property is they need to underground the utilities. They recently formed a utility undergrounding district. In the Staff Report (for a Redevelopment Agency meeting not long ago), the city said they need the land now. They want(the Surfases) off there now because they have to underground the utilities. (Yet) in the city’s own Staff Report, it says the undergrounding of the utilities won’t take place until 2008. Next year is when they are planning to do it. Why did they make a statement in their earlier pleadings, saying, ‘We need this property because we are going to underground the utilities.’? It is essential.’
“To use that as an excuse to move the Surfases off the land is, to put it kindly, disingenuous of the city,” Ms. Sandifur said.
