Marking another legal fight over a planned Van Nuys fire station, a group of San Fernando Valley residents filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles over the project.
Filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, the lawsuit challenges the environmental analysis for the 18,500-square-foot planned station at Oxnard? Street and Vesper Avenue and asks the court to invalidate the station’s approval.
This is the neighbors’ second lawsuit against the city over the $20 million station. Besides the Van Nuys residents, several other groups, including the Wilmington-based Coalition for a Safe Environment, an environmental health and justice nonprofit, are also listed as petitioners in the suit.
“This isn’t an appropriate place for the station,” said Jeffrey Lynn, who lives about 500 feet from the planned station and is one of the residents suing the city.
Lynn argues siren noise from exiting trucks will be a nuisance and questions whether soil contamination on the site is a risk for neighbors.
The Los Angeles City Council approved the station in July despite objections from some nearby residents. At that meeting, area Councilwoman Nury Martinez argued that the site is appropriate because of the neighborhood’s commercial feel. A planned 400-foot sound wall will act as a buffer for homes from the siren noise, Martinez also argued.
Supporters, including the Los Angeles Fire Department, contend the new station is needed to replace the Valley’s oldest firehouse, the 1930s-era Station 39 on Sylvan?Street.
Martinez wasn’t available Monday to comment on the lawsuit.
Neighbors first sued the city over the council’s approval of the firehouse in June? 2014, arguing the noise and other environmental effects from the proposed project weren’t studied.
The lawsuit prompted City? Hall to rescind the project’s approval in December 2014 and order a fuller environmental report, which was finalized in June.
Asked about this new lawsuit, City Attorney Mike Feuer’s spokesman, Rob Wilcox, said his office was reviewing the filing.
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