Los Angeles County Development And Redevelopment

A Superior Court judge has ruled against opponents of the Soka University expansion plan, deciding the environmental impact report for the project they are fighting is valid. The decision, which prevents opponents from launching the new public review process they sought, comes two years after Los Angeles County supervisors approved the expansion.

Dillard's Inc., the country's third-largest department store chain, will open its first store in Southern California next year. More branches will follow the one in Palmdale, a company representative said Tuesday. The mid-priced retailer will set up shop in a new building at Antelope Valley Mall, said Dillard's spokeswoman Julie Bull. She declined to say how many other stores Dillard's plans to open in Southern California or where they might be located, but acknowledged there will be more.

Forest Lawn agreed Friday to give the city of Los Angeles nearly 90 acres of land for Griffith Park, and about $70,000 in return for the right to uproot more than 100 oak trees on cemetery property. The agreement stems from a Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed by Forest Lawn in March to stop the city from repealing an ordinance that allows the cemetery to remove oak trees from its original 400 acres in the Hollywood Hills just south of Burbank.

Residents and a councilman's aide protested what they called an unwanted and illegal automotive equipment-and-supply mall at a zoning hearing Friday. The future of the partially constructed 12,000-square-foot retail center appears in limbo. "This part of Studio City needs another auto repair shop like Clinton needs another intern scandal," said Tom Henry, an aide to City Councilman Joel Wachs. "I can tell you right now this is not going to get community support."

A group of residents who worked for a year to raise enough money to buy a small piece of oceanview land at the top of Las Pulgas Canyon said Wednesday that they have reached their goal. Escrow on the one-third acre plot known as the Las Casas-Grenola Viewsite will close Aug. 31, said Blake Mirkin, who was among a small group of neighbors who solicited donations from neighbors and government agencies to buy the land for $265,000.

After a contentious, three-hour hearing this week, the Lomita City Council approved in a 4-1 vote the construction of a Kentucky Fried Chicken/Taco Bell on the corner of Western Avenue and Palos Verdes Drive North. The restaurant was the focus of a year-long fight between the developer of the vacant lot and residents of an abutting public housing project, who fear that it will add traffic to the neighborhood and be a magnet for crime.

Tending her tomatoes or hanging up her washing in the small, tidy yard of her public housing project apartment, Maria Sepulveda has more than a nodding acquaintance with the subject of a heated local land-use debate under way at the base of the affluent Palos Verdes Peninsula. Her home in the venerable Harbor Hills project, a well kept, 300-unit complex, abuts a narrow strip of weed-choked land at Western Avenue and Palos Verdes Drive North, one of the area's busiest intersections.

Saying that the proposed expansion of Los Angeles International Airport is "troubling," the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday demanded a voice in the city's plans to enlarge the overcrowded facility. The board also urged the city to develop a regional approach to anticipated growth in air traffic that would siphon some activity from LAX to smaller airports. "L.A. city has turned a deaf ear on the other 87 cities in L.A.

Rapid expansion in the entertainment and high-tech fields and the general economic upturn have pushed vacancy rates for industrial space in the San Fernando Valley below 5%, creating the tightest industrial real estate market in the Southland, according to a new study. From the growth of Disney, DreamWorks and Warner Bros.

Rapid expansion in the entertainment and high-tech fields and the general economic upturn have pushed vacancy rates for industrial space in the San Fernando Valley below 5%, creating the tightest industrial real estate market in the Southland, according to a new study. From the growth of Disney, DreamWorks and Warner Bros.