Marymount College Expansion Update

Last Tuesday three of the four voting members of the Rancho Palos Verdes Planning Commission voted to oppose the construction of on-campus residence halls at Marymount College.

They also voted on other specific things dealing with the athletic facilities at the campus.

These votes were taken in preparation for the Commissions final recommendations concerning the Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project being sent to the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council for final approval or disapproval.

For those of us living on the eastern side of Rancho Palos Verdes and northwest San Pedro it was both a victory and a defeat.

Commissioner J. Lewis is recommending the Living Campus/Academic Campus Alternative favored by the main opposition group to the Expansion Project.

Concerned Citizens Coalition/Marymount Expansion (CCC/ME) is siding with Commissioner Lewis that the 'Superior Environmental Alternative' is to stick all student housing along Palos Verdes Drive North at the College's 'Palos Verdes North' facility.

The College's Preferred Project which has been essentially voted down sought to add 624.4 vehicle trips along Western Avenue between Palos Verdes Drive North and Trudie Drive.

If the Living Campus/Academic Campus ever finds approval there is no real estimate given on the additional number of vehicles trips between the Palos Verdes North facilities and the College's campus.

Oh yea, that Alternative also calls for ALL of the athletic instruction to be conducted at Palos Verdes North.

Please remember the elephant that roams along Western Avenue in the form of Ponte Vista at San Pedro.

So for us, we won't be having late night younguns heading from the campus along foggy P.V. Drive East to the fast food outlets near us.

But we will need to work a bit to insure that the Alternative suggested by Commissioner Lewis and CCC/ME is just a bit of humor with no real prospect of actually happening.

At least we have a couple of things on our side.

Dr. Michael Brophy, the President of the College and all of the supporters of the Project want nothing to do with trying to put more students at Palos Verdes North.

We have the giant bureaucracy that is the Los Angeles City Planning Department the College would have to encounter to have that Alternative worked on.

We have HOAs, Coalitions, San Pedro Neighborhood Councils, and R Neighborhoods Are 1 to assist us if we might need them.

There are a whole lot more of us than there ever could be members of CCC/ME.

We have already won a major victory against that elephant in the living room roaming along Western.

We also have seen a victory by San Pedro residents against a greedy developer who attempted to change the nature of a neighborhood.

And I think we are all growing more tired of having folks living on other parts of The Hill dumping on us and San Pedro.

There are many great things about the Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project we all should support.

But having on-campus housing and that pesky Living Campus/Academic Campus Alternative are not things we should allow.

Who knows really. If Marymount doesn't successfully complete its second year on academic warning everything may actually become moot.

The College's central point of the Expansion Project is a marketing ploy to bring more students to the College and increase the enrollment by offering parents more control and observation of their kids because of on-campus housing.

Not to worry right now. It's all going to end up in court anyway.