South Bay : Suit Seeks to Prevent Nature Center at Site

Angry residents on the Palos Verdes Peninsula filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to thwart plans to erect a $4.4-million nature center atop a pastoral park.

The suit, by the 300-member Friends of Friendship Park and other plaintiffs, contends that county plans for a 6,500-square-foot facility at the park, recently renamed for county Supervisor Deane Dana, will harm not only the bluff’s rural splendor but also remains of a 5,000-year-old Native American village.

The Los Angeles Superior Court suit also maintains that county supervisors failed to consider an alternative site for the center, also scheduled to be named for Dana, when they approved plans for the facility in November. Other plaintiffs include the Gabrielino / Tongva Indian tribe.

“The Friends don’t have an objection to having a Deane Dana nature center,” attorney Jan Chatten-Brown said. “Their objection is the . . . size and location.”

The suit seeks the relocation of the proposed center and protection for the ancient settlement.

Jane Jones, who chairs the Friends group, said her organization would be content with a scaled-back center midway down the hill near an existing parking lot and picnic area.

“This is a nature park, and we want to keep it that way,” Jones said. The current plan “would bring automobiles and buses right into the center of the park.”