Latest News About the Marymount Expansion

Below is a very recent article dealing with the Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project as it winds its way through the approval processes

Commission continues Marymount discussion
By Ashley Ratcliff, Peninsula News
Thursday, April 9, 2009 11:29 AM PDT

RPV — Incremental progress toward a final decision on Marymount College’s facilities expansion is achieved with each passing meeting that Rancho Palos Verdes’ Planning Commission deliberates.

While a majority of commission members present on Tuesday night said they were prepared to certify the project’s final environmental impact report, the commission stopped short of doing so but directed staff to prepare a resolution for the document’s certification.

Commissioners Paul Tetreault and Stephen Perestam were absent, and Commissioner Edward Ruttenberg recused himself.

Joel Rojas, director of planning, building and code enforcement, clarified on Wednesday that while the commission took the first step toward certifying the EIR, it doesn’t guarantee approval of the project, which calls for the construction of two residence halls, an athletic facility and a library, and additions to Marymount’s auditorium, faculty, student union and administration buildings.

During the public hearing, which wrapped up at about 12:30 a.m., the panel reviewed the traffic and circulation section of the EIR, as well as the comments and response table that includes questions posed by commissioners, college officials and members of the public.

However, the discussion ran the gamut from restricting freshman drivers to the project’s visual character. It was evident that concerns with aspects of Marymount’s modernization effort remain, while numerous residents spoke as to why they "whole-heartedly" advocate the plan.

"This project is moving toward a green certification under LEED, which is a very important thing," said Bill Dunlop, whose daughter attends the two-year liberal arts college. "This facility will be built under a highly critical environmental requirement to get a green-approved building, whether it’s silver, gold or platinum … and I think that’s a credit to them."

An item that got the attention of some opposing the project was theclaim made in Marymount’s advertisement, which ran in last Thursday’s Peninsula News and the Daily Breeze’s Sunday paper, that 80 percent of RPV residents support the campus improvement plan.

Marymount President Dr. Michael Brophy provided the city with a list of 900 supporters’ names and numerous support letters from members of the community at large, including the Palos Verdes Peninsula Chamber of Commerce.

"We have consistently polled the public in 2006 and 2008 and we have those results … We found that in the neighborhood, there are 122 people who live close to the college who are willing to support the college’s plans," Brophy said.

Peter Brown of MWW Group, the college’s public relations firm, said Wednesday that Public Opinion Strategies sampled 300 "likely" registered RPV voters and "over-sampled" 25 people in five precincts near the campus "to make sure we had statistically reliable votes." From those calls, an 80-percent support rate was garnered.

According to Brown, when conducting calls, the pollsters discussed every feature of the project, from libraries to dorms, and alternated questions between the project’s positives and negatives.

Long proposed by the Concerned Citizens Coalition/Marymount Expansion Inc., the "living campus/academic campus" model that calls for keeping the residence halls and athletic facilities separate from the campus also resurfaced during the discussion.

According to Marymount’s land use counsel Don Davis, the split-campus alternative is "infeasible" and "doesn’t meet our project objectives." But CCC/ME member Tom Redfield opined that, "all the problems with the neighbors, all the noise, traffic goes away" with that option.

But former RPV Traffic Safety Commissioner Mark Wells said he hopes both sides put the idea to rest.

"The living campus-academic campus alternative would find a great deal of opposition from people in Rolling Hills Riviera, eastern Rancho Palos Verdes, Lomita, Harbor City and northwest San Pedro, including their Neighborhood Council," he said. "Please. It’s time to let that go because it will never fly. For my Marymount friends, I’m sorry — the campus was built as a day-use campus. It would be a safety problem to have on-campus housing for students."

Among other complaints from the opposition was that the EIR in its current form is not certifiable."If an agency adds significant, new information prior to certification but after consultation with the public and other agencies, it must recirculate the EIR prior to certification," said CCC/ME President Lois Karp.

She pointed to "Appendix A" — a summary of changes to the document since the final EIR’s release — and the college’s proposal to allow 150 students to attend night school five times per week on the campus, and to extend the operating hours until midnight.

RPV Principal Planner Ara Mihranian said the EIR is based on the "worst-case" scenario of having a 24/7 operation and already accounts for the on-site dormitories and ancillary uses of the campus, such as athletic events at the new facilities.

Mihranian clarified that there are four "significant, unavoidable" impacts associated with the Marymount project: the land use regarding construction on an extreme slope, traffic projected by forecast year 2012 at the Palos Verdes Drive East-PV Drive South intersection, construction noise impact and the project’s visual character.

The commission also modified several of the project’s mitigation measures, continued the public hearing to April 14, when the officials will review the planning applications, and authorized erecting a silhouette for the proposed athletic field net.

June 9 is the date tentatively selected for the commission’s final decision on the EIR and planning applications.

aratcliff@pvnews.com