Torrance OKs Plans for 90 Townhouses

Watt Industries Inc. has won final approval of plans to build 90 luxury townhouses in a private, gated community on the site of the former Torrance Drive-In, across Torrance Boulevard from Bishop Montgomery High School.

Torrance City Council members debated the project for nearly two hours Wednesday before voting 4-2, with Mayor Katy Geissert and Councilwoman Dee Hardison opposed, to approve the project.

City planners had urged the council to reject the project, saying they would have preferred a single-family residential development on the 14.87-acre site. But they said the townhouse project, reduced from an initial request for 97 units, will meet city standards for that type of development.

Watt spokesmen told neighbors in 1988 that the developer was considering a 179-unit project with a small commercial strip, but such plans were never filed with the city.

Several residents complained Wednesday that the single access road into the new community will create traffic hazards and endanger students from the high school.

“Traffic already is so heavy on Torrance Boulevard that it’s just outrageous,” said Sumner Power, who lives just north of the drive-in site. “People come tearing around that curve without a thought.”

Jeffery Gibson, senior principal planner for the city, said Watt reduced the number of townhouses it had originally proposed building on the outside of the circular development from 34 to 25 to minimize the impact on surrounding residents.

The townhouses, which are expected to cost an average of $525,000, will be detached units with two- and three-car garages and private yards either on one side or in the back.

“The project is getting closer and closer and closer to a single-family project,” Gibson said, noting that Watt, to meet planners’ concerns, widened the streets, increased the average lot size and agreed to put fire sprinklers in the homes.

Ray Keslake, president of Watt Land, a subsidiary of Watt Industries, said ground breaking will probably take place within six months. Families could begin moving into the first of three construction phases nine months after that, he said.