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# City Council allows temporary exiting from SMC campus
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/city-council-allows-temporary-exiting-from-smc-campus/
- Published: 2005-11-14T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T08:09:09.000Z
- Author: Ryan Hyatt
- Tags: Education, Santa Monica Airport, #archive-import

*Students want better SMC parking access*

CITY HALL — Santa Monica College gained a victory last week in its ongoing political gridlock with City Hall when elected officials agreed to let the educational institution continue to have restricted access to its Bundy campus.

After hearing comments from more than 40 members of the public over the course of a nearly four-hour debate, the Santa Monica City Council decided to move forward with a tri-party agreement between City Hall, SMC and West LA that had been discussed, but not approved, during previous meetings among the three groups.

The agreement will allow students to continue to have access to SMC’s 10.4-acre satellite campus, located at 3171 S. Bundy Dr. Specifically, the council will allow students to continue to park at the Santa Monica Airport lot — as construction on the new Airport Park will permit — and walk across the street to attend classes at Bundy until Dec. 20, the end of the fall semester.

In return, SMC will be required to make its Bundy campus as insular as possible to prevent traffic flow through residential neighborhoods to and from its main campus at 1900 Pico Blvd. The City Council authorized limited right-turn-only vehicular exiting from the Bundy campus onto Airport Avenue until the end of the spring semester, as long as West LA is able to fulfill its terms of the agreement. West LA must install a half-turn signal on northbound Bundy Drive before the end of the spring semester, which will allow student motorists to more safely exit the satellite campus.

As part of the agreement, SMC — whose legal representatives attended the meeting — must waive any property right claim to an easement from Airport Avenue to the Bundy Campus and indemnify the city from liability related to providing the egress. Further, the City Council authorized a six-month extension of the south beach lots for student shuttle parking.

Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl — whose constituents live in Mar Vista and are affected by SMC traffic — spoke at the Nov. 8 meeting. Rosendahl said he was willing to push for the traffic signal, against some of his constituents’ wishes, in order to alleviate a safety crisis he feels is underway around the Bundy campus.

“The issue is out of hand,” Rosendahl said. “(Students) making a left-hand turn onto Bundy are looking at a car crash.”

Rosendahl’s willingness to move the agreement forward didn’t come without its share of scrutiny by Santa Monica coun-cilmembers, some of whom felt that if safety was the primary concern, there may have been more immediate steps that Rosendahl or other SMC officials might have made.

“Why hasn’t (West LA) put a traffic control officer out there?” said Santa Monica City Councilman Richard Bloom. “If traffic was the real concern, why does it seem (no one thought of taking such steps)?”

Rosendahl’s comment were followed by SMC’s interim president Tom Donner. Donner focused his discussion on the fact that the Bundy site’s previous owner, BAE Systems Inc., a defense contractor, had unrestricted access to the facility. Donner felt it was only appropriate that SMC have the same access that the defense contractor once did.

“All we ask is that the city re-open the fence it has made, which was available to other community members in the past,” Donner said.

The site has a 100,000-square-foot, four-story building housing classrooms intended for nursing, teaching and community education courses. In addition, Bundy has a 30,000-square-foot, two-story building the college is not using, and a surface parking lot capable of holding 609 cars, which SMC officials said will meet the needs of expected campus operations.

However, vehicular access to Bundy is currently limited to college staff and the disabled. The satellite campus is buttressed against the city of Los Angeles to the east, with a small road that permits turning in and out of the site from Bundy Drive. The Bundy campus also is fronted by Los Angeles to the east — on the corner of which is Stewart Avenue, a north-south neighborhood street the college has agreed not to use for campus access, except in the case of emergencies.

Bundy is buttressed against the city of Santa Monica to the north, lined with commercial buildings City Hall leases, which separate the Bundy campus from Airport Avenue, a two-lane east-west road that leads to 23rd Street.

City Hall this summer prevented vehicular access onto the Bundy site from Santa Monica entry and exit points, in response to neighborhood complaints related to the college’s expansion plans. City officials have said that restriction will be indefinite unless other agreements are made.

Meanwhile, college officials contend their plans for Bundy have been scaled back to accommodate neighborhood concerns. College officials want vehicular access to the Bundy campus, at entry and exit points located within Santa Monica and West LA to accommodate its students.

The speakers who followed Rosendahl and Donner were both proponents and opponents for Bundy access. They included neighborhood groups from Mar Vista, Sunset Park and Ocean Park as well as dozens of SMC students and staff.

Santa Monica resident Lorraine Sanchez urged the City Council to be firm in its dealings with the college, which she said has a history of bureaucratic bungling that needed to be addressed.

“No one seems to be holding the college responsible for wasting public money with poor planning,” Sanchez said. “Please, hold the college responsible.”

Jeff Jensen, representing the SMC student body, said that in his talks with fellow classmates their biggest concerns were parking and transportation. Once students arrive at school, he said their jobs become easier.

“Let us do what we do best,” Jensen told the council. “Sit in a classroom and learn.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 14, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/111405.pdf?ref=smdp.com)