UCLA’s baseball stadium will be closed at noon Thursday after a federal judge ruled earlier this month that it violated land use on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs campus in West Los Angeles.
The order came during a hearing on Wednesday, when U.S. District Judge David O. Carter expressed frustration that the illegally leased land on the VA campus does not benefit military veterans, to whom the land was originally deeded. Carter said Jackie Robinson Stadium would remain closed until the university could come up with a plan for how the stadium land could benefit military veterans.
The lengthy hearing followed a month-long non-jury trial in which the judge decided a class-action lawsuit brought by disabled homeless veterans in the Los Angeles area. Carter criticized the VA for “turning its back” on the veterans it was supposed to help by leasing parts of its campus to the UCLA baseball team, a private Brentwood school, an oil company and a parking facility on the agency’s West Los Angeles campus.
In the lawsuit, the VA argued that there is no more space on the 940-acre campus and that the lack of available acreage prevents it from expanding the 1,200 housing units it has promised to open by 2030. Attorneys for the VA argued that any court-ordered relief would burden the department financially and deprive it of the flexibility it needs to address veteran homelessness.
Ultimately, the court ruled that veterans are entitled to more than 2,500 housing units on campus and voided the land-use agreements. The judge also ordered the construction of 1,800 additional permanent housing units for disabled veterans on or near the VA campus — in addition to the 1,200 housing units the VA had already promised.
A UCLA official tried to convince a judge during Wednesday’s hearing to keep Jackie Robinson Stadium open, but was unsuccessful.
Carter said he would go to the VA campus in West Los Angeles on Thursday to make sure his orders had been followed.
The judge also warned during the hearing that he was on the verge of having the Brentwood School athletic center on VA property “bulldozed” and the swimming pool “filled with sand” unless the school turned over the VA land and figured out a way for war veterans to enjoy the center along with the students.
Carter wrote that the VA in West LA has been “infected by bribery, corruption, and the influence of the powerful and their lobbyists over the past five decades, and this has been enabled by a major educational institution that has excluded veterans’ input on its own turf.”
The 388-acre West LA Campus was donated to the VA in 1888 to provide housing and health care to veterans.
