“We won!” shout Home Depot opponents

The 12-to-1 L.A. City Council vote against Home Depot on Wednesday morning means that the project determination is no longer appealable. The Home Depot must now decide if it will apply for a Project Permit Compliance Review with the City Council Planning Board, and all this entails, or simply drop the plans for a store at this location.

Should they proceed, they must do an Environmental Impact Study, have it reviewed by the Planning Board and go through all the processes needed to complete these studies. The process could take from four months to over a year.

Though Home Depot hasn’t said whether or not they will be moving forward with the project, company spokesperson Sarah Molinari wanted to make it clear that if they do, it will only benefit the community.

“We strive to have a positive impact on every community we enter,” Molinari said. “We create new jobs with some of the best benefits in our industry, we provide a boost to local non-profits, and we encourage property owners to become excited about making improvements to their properties and neighborhoods. The Home Depot will continue to work to bring jobs, good benefits, and revitalization to Sunland-Tujunga.”

At Wednesday’s meeting, there were 14 council members present, with one absentee (Council Member Reyes) and one dissenting vote coming from Council Member Cardenas. Council Member Alarcon left the meeting just before this agenda item came up, stating that he had to be somewhere else.

Most of the Sunland-Tujunga contingent felt that his vote would have been a dissenting one.

Following the decision by the City Council, the No Home Depot Campaign “as we know it, is essentially over” said Diamond.

She went on to say that issues will now be watched and followed closely by the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Alliance. However, she warned that the campaign members will watch closely what happens next in regard to further actions by Home Depot.

“We will not stop just because this decision has been reached,” she said.