Hearing Will Address Size of Planned Lakes

At a public hearing Wednesday, the Los Angeles Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners will ask for input on its recommendation to reduce the size of two lakes to be built in the Hansen Dam Recreation Center.

Financial considerations led the city and Army Corps of Engineers to agree earlier this year to reduce the size of the lakes from 15 to 10.5 acres, said Dallan Zamrzla, director of planning and development for the city Recreation and Parks Department.

The project now calls for a 9-acre recreation lake and 1.5-acre swimming lake.

“The money wasn’t available for a 15-acre lake,” Zamrzla said. “The county has told us there is no problem in doing this, we just have to go through the proper steps.”

The board’s recommendations will be forwarded to the City Council and then to the County Board of Supervisors, which also must approve the plan. Most of the funding for the project comes from Proposition A, a 1992 county bond measure.

In October, the Army Corps of Engineers announced it signed a $7.6-million contract with a Santa Monica engineering firm to create the two lakes.

Zamrzla said construction is proceeding even though the hearing process is not yet complete.

“We’ve had assurances all along the line that it would be approved,” he said.

From the early 1950s to the early 1980s, swimmers, anglers and water-skiers flocked to Holiday Lake, a 120-acre body of water that had formed naturally behind Hansen Dam in a large excavation pit.

However, Hansen Dam sits in a flood plain, and major floods caused the lake to be choked with silt and sediments, so it was closed in 1982.

The new lakes are scheduled to open in spring 1999.

Wednesday’s hearing will begin at 9:30 a.m. at City Hall East, Room 1325, 200 N. Main St. downtown.