A hotly divided Hawthorne City Council traded accusations of corruption, conflict and collusion this week before approving a dense apartment building that will share a corner with SpaceX, an Amazon delivery hub and other industry, despite strong opposition from those companies.

The council voted 3-2 late Tuesday to allow Blackwood Real Estate to build 230 small apartments on Crenshaw Boulevard at Jack Northrop Avenue. The six-story project will occupy a rectangular 2.5-acre lot that will also include a restaurant and walking paths.

The so-called “Green Line” development, which needed waivers from the city because it violates several zoning restrictions, was sold as a modern, transit-oriented project by virtue of its location one-half mile from a Green Line station.

City Council supporters — Angie English, Haidar Awad and Olivia Valentine — also refused to allow a second public comment period Tuesday night to hear from local industrial representatives who requested to speak against putting homes near their operations. The meeting was streamed online, and can be viewed on the city’s website at cityofhawthorne.org.

A closed nursing school sits on the site of a future 230-unit apartment complex in Hawthorne on Wednesday, October 11, 2017. The Hawthorne City Council voted 3-2 to approve the project which will be built across from SpaceX and bordered by Crenshaw Boulevard and the Dominguez Channel. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

A closed nursing school sits on the site of a future 230-unit apartment complex in Hawthorne on Wednesday, October 11, 2017. The Hawthorne City Council voted 3-2 to approve the project which will be built across from SpaceX and bordered by Crenshaw Blvd and the Dominguez Channel. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

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A closed nursing school sits on the site of a future 230-unit apartment complex in Hawthorne on Wednesday, October 11, 2017. The Hawthorne City Council voted 3-2 to approve the project which will be built across from SpaceX and bordered by Crenshaw Blvd and the Dominguez Channel. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

A closed nursing school sits on the site of a future 230-unit apartment complex in Hawthorne on Wednesday, October 11, 2017. The Hawthorne City Council voted 3-2 to approve the project which will be built across from SpaceX and bordered by Crenshaw Blvd and the Dominguez Channel. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)



Mayor Alex Vargas and Councilman Nilo Michelin strongly opposed the development, and the city’s planning director raised concerns about its incompatibility with suitable city land uses.

“We need to stop building apartments and start bringing in development,” Vargas said. “This is vital land that could be used for industrial space. This flies in the face of development standards that we have established.”

Officials also said it could draw similarly incompatible projects from developers looking to profit from relaxed standards.

Dense apartment buildings are a particularly sore issue in the city because, in the 1970s and ’80s, developers concentrated such projects in the crime-ridden Moneta Gardens neighborhood.

“We do have a lot of apartments,” said Alex Monteiro, a principal of Moneta Gardens Improvement Inc. “We have 70 percent renters. We need more homes and condominiums for sale, not for rent.”

The project provides fewer parking spaces than the city normally requires, and apartments are smaller than the Municipal Code allows. Residents there also will be subject to noise, traffic and emissions from the 24-hour industrial operations next to them.

“For me, change is not more apartments. It’s more aerospace companies,” Michelin said. “I was not elected to passionately defend developers. We don’t need more apartments. If we put a factory right in the middle of a residential zone, it wouldn’t make any sense. When you put an apartment in an industrial zone, that’s going to open up the floodgates to more apartments. We don’t need that. That area could be for aerospace jobs.”

Trading accusations

Before the vote, council members accused one another of corruption.

Vargas said English’s proposal in September to reduce the apartment density from 274 units to 230 units was suspicious.

“Why are some council members entering into unilateral negotiations with the developer?” Vargas asked. “We were prohibited from talking to the developer. Who chose that 230 number? Why not 150? Why not 80?”

English shot back: “Since (Vargas) put it out there, there’s a lot to be said. There’s also been collusion on his part. I want to know from the planning director how many times the mayor has been in contact with you. The bull has to stop.”

English also accused the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating high-paying jobs for the region, of unethical behavior for opposing the deal.

“There’s a conflict with LAEDC and SpaceX,” she said. “SpaceX is a member of LAEDC, so of course they would be here to benefit SpaceX. They’re colluding to make efforts to trash this project.”

Valentine said she believes it’s “very suspicious” that SpaceX and the LAEDC were in opposition because “this (apartment building) will make the area attractive for commercial development.”

Resident Andrea Santana accused Awad of having a conflict of interest because his father, who operates a used-car dealership and financing business, owns undeveloped land in the city that could get a boost in property values from developers looking to build dense low-cost housing.

“It seems to me a little fishy,” Santana said.

Awad responded that he will make his personal finances public.

“I am clean,” Awad said. “When you’re clean, you have no fear of what’s in the shadows.

“I don’t let communities push me one way or another way. I research and look at everything — not with tunnel vision.”

Supporters said Blackwood’s project is the kind of modern, forward-thinking development that Hawthorne needs.

Kyle Orlemann, vice chairwoman of the city’s veterans affairs commission, said she would like to move to a place like the Green Line project when she gets older.

“The city is changing and, yes, we have a lot of rental units here,” Orlemann said. “However, we have a lot of traffic. The city is going to be a model where people live near where they work. (Renters there) can certainly walk to Lowe’s and that development and take cars off the street. Using public transportation is the way of the future.”

Opponents list concerns

Judy Kruger, a director at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., said the city’s decision to build housing in the area is a detriment to its economy. Instead, she suggested making the area an aerospace park.

“Industrial land is employment land, and a critical factor in growing an industry such as aerospace,” Kruger said. “Jobs in industrial parks support high-paying jobs. Industrial land availability rates around the region are only at 1 or 2 percent and we don’t need to lose any more industrial property.

“We want to make sure aerospace companies are encouraged and able to grow and hire. Hawthorne residents need jobs to support their families.”

Lilian Haney, community relations manager at SpaceX, asked the council to reopen a public comment period at the beginning of the meeting, saying the rocket maker is concerned about the safety of homes so close to its operations. The company currently leases a portion of the site for parking.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s Boring Co. also is digging a test freeway tunnel beneath a portion of Crenshaw Boulevard near the new apartments.

“We do not think this project proposed is correct for this space,” Haney said.

Other adjacent industrial clients also have 24-hour trucking operations that run by the site. And Union Pacific Railroad has an active track directly behind the property.

“In an industrial area where we operate 24-7, we oppose” residential projects, Union Pacific spokesman Justin Jacobs told the Daily Breeze. “We don’t want (residents exposed) to a bunch of noise.”

Valentine said that’s a moot point because the developers plan to insulate the apartments from noise.

“It is hoped that this type of development, along with its amenities such as a swimming pool and restaurant, will attract young middle- to upper-class workers making the area attractive for the commercial development we all want to see happen,” Valentine said.