PHOTO: Ballona Underwater after Storms of 1941
A Collection of Historical Ballona Stories...
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Our long struggle is finally paying off. The following is a chronology of the grassroots efforts to Save All of Ballona. In bold print we have included totals of Playa Vista and Howard Hughes' campaign contributions, and have tried to document every sweetheart deal they got in exchange for their gifts to politicians.
For the full story, click here:
Historical summary of Ballona battles 1975-2003
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April 1988--Demopublican Developmentality
DEVELOPMENT AND THE DEMOPUBLICANS
Howard Hughes came to Southern California in 1940, and bought about 1000 acres of farmland and blufftops south of Venice for his new aircraft plant, paying less than $500,000 for all of it. By the time of his death in 1976, Hughes Aircraft had become the largest employer in the State, with defense plants throughout Southern California. Producing missile guidance systems, helicopters, radar and satellites, Hughes lead the U.S. to great advances in technology, all mostly paid for with Federal tax dollars. While their products led to economic prosperity here, they produced an equal amount of suffering among innocent victims of foreign wars whose combatants Hughes supplied.
Hughes left an estate worth billions.
To read more, click here:
Demopublican Developmentality, see page 3
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5SGRAMv8RXuTmNNN09ldkN5elU/view
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May 1989--L.A. and Culver City at War over each other's developments
Showdown at the Straits of Prudential
Members of the Venice Town Council voted 68-2 last April 13th to continue a lawsuit the group has filed against the developers of the Marina Place shopping mall, turning down a $9 million package of relief measures. The site is an 18 acre parcel which once was a Hughes Helicopter plant, located on Washington Blvd. just east of Lincoln Blvd… One of the reasons the Culver City Council Oked the Marina Place last year was because "L.A. is building big projects just outside of our City limits, we get all the traffic and L.A. makes all the money". The Culver Planning Commission said "the impact of traffic from Marina Place would be insignificant when measured against the traffic generated by major developments OK'd by L.A. near the project site."
To read more, click here:
L.A. and Culver City at War (against the public), see page 8
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5SGRAMv8RXuWU1oaC1iRlBDTzA
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August 1989--Lincoln Blvd. Traffic War
LINCOLN BLVD.:
Battleground of the Giants
Can We Take It All?
Can you imagine 540,000 more cars a day in the Westchester to Venice area? That’s what we face if 5 huge developments are built along Lincoln Blvd. as the owners are threatening to do. Two projects, Playa Vista and the LAX expansion will contribute 310,000 cars alone.
According to traffic studies performed by both L.A. and Culver Cities, rush-hour traffic will triple on Lincoln Blvd from what it is now, which is already abominable.
Fresh from ok’ing the Marina Place Mall in March of this year, the Culver City Council has just announced their opposition to L.A.’s Playa Vista, with Mayor Steven Gourley calling it “potentially disastrous”. Culver officials are also threatening a lawsuit over the L.A. City Council’s July 10th ok of the Channel Gateway project, partially in retaliation for a suit filed by the Venice Town Council and L.A. City against Culver City for their approving Marina Place.
Now that both projects are approved, how do the 2 cities plan to deal with the traffic? Well, local businesses lose again to let the giants build…
To read more, click here:
Lincoln Blvd. Traffic Capacity War
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NOVEMBER 24, 1995
The first major news article covering the Ballona battle from our perspective:
SUBDIVIDING PARADISE
L.A. WEEKLY,
BY J. WILLIAM GIBSON
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May 1997: The truth is ugly enough, but Friends of Playa Vista launch campaign to accuse their opponents of lying
click here: Desperate Developer Deception
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5SGRAMv8RXuODl4TUpjYktIdDQ/view
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April 1998--Ballona Baloney
By Rex Frankel
It's Friday afternoon. The rush hour traffic is whizzing by 10 people who are holding signs at a street corner covered with wildflowers south of Marina Del Rey. This curious, devoted group, who call themselves "BEEP!", has shown up every Friday at 5:00 P.M. for the last two years to protest the proposed real estate development, called Playa Vista, which will wipe out these wildflowers, replacing them and much of the marshy Ballona Valley nearby with a square mile of concrete, condominiums, and congested traffic. Vying for the right to pave over this rare L.A. open space are two of wall street's biggest financial powerhouses, Morgan-Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and the producer of many of Hollywood's recent blockbuster movies, Steven Spielberg -- and his multi-billionaire computer-monopolist partner, Bill Gates.
To read more, click here, see page 2:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5SGRAMv8RXudGtsUlZDS2c3cDA/view
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April 1999
The Playa Vista Papers
STUNNING WHISTLEBLOWER REVELATIONS SHOW PLAYA VISTA/BALLONA WETLANDS DEVELOPER'S SECRET POLITICAL STRATEGY TO HELP RE-ELECT RUTH GALANTER AND BILK THE TAXPAYERS
…What isn't well known, until today, is actually what the current owners of the land paid for it. According to a shocking, revealing, and extremely cynical 188-page internal memo written by Playa Vista’s owners and given to the citizens who oppose this development by an active whistleblowers network inside the development company, the firm Playa Capital LLC only paid $101 million to acquire this fragile urban open space. Galanter, who claims to be a "strong environmentalist", wants the government to help develop 2/3rds of this land with incentives of well over twice what the entire parcel is worth. Galanter is amply rewarding the developer for their huge campaign contributions.
But the Playa Vista developer's assistance to her campaign goes much farther than that. …
To read more, click here: Insider whistleblowers release Playa Vista internal memos
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5SGRAMv8RXuQUZjMEVYQ0lPYTA/view
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June 1999: Playa Vista hosts "Smart Growth" convention" see page 2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5SGRAMv8RXuOVhXTVk5QTJuVUk/view
and: DreamWorks can't get exemption from responsibility for Toxic Waste at their future studio left by previous tenants
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September 1999
DREAMWORKS BAILS OUT
On July 1st, the super billionaires at DreamWorks said "Hasta la Playa Vista". They're out of here! Blaming the high cost of construction and lack of financing, they won't help in the destruction of the Ballona Wetlands…
On August 2nd, Councilwoman Ruth Galanter announced that she has now realized that there are more wetlands needing to be preserved than she has claimed for the past ten years. While she continues to support the first phase of the project, which is east of Lincoln Blvd, she now says that the proposed second phase, everything west of Lincoln Blvd., should be acquired by the government and preserved…
Last month, the Vice President of Playa Vista, David Herbst, admitted that the project "has a methane problem" before the City Council's housing committee…
To read more, click here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5SGRAMv8RXueE1CQnozcF9CYTA/view
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August 2000--Playa Vista developer's finances in deep trouble;
the full story of the discovery of explosive gases under Playa Vista's condos
click here: Self-Heating Condos
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5SGRAMv8RXub2cwLUJaOHRsQ28/view
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EARLY 2003
PLAYA VISTA OPENS THEIR POLLUTION-TREATING "MARSH"
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January 2003
Lincoln Blvd. Widening through future State Park halted; BEEP's alternative gets good review by Coastal Commission; and more in BEEP's Save Our Ballona Park newsletter
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5SGRAMv8RXuam1wNEZpQUl3WVk/view
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September 2004
If, 200 years from now, your remains were moved to make way for high-end apartments and condos, you'd at least hope your surviving relatives would be bummed. And so it is for some Native Americans, who fear that a more than 200-year-old Gabrielino-Tongva burial site just east of the Ballona Wetlands will soon be paved over with 2+2s and modern living, now that the Los Angeles City Council has given its approval to Phase 2 of the controversial Playa Vista development south of Marina del Rey. Can you say Poltergeist?
To read more, click here:
Community Fights Last Phase of Playa Vista
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December 12, 2007
California Supreme Court Deals Playa Vista the Final Blow:
The landmark victory by Los Angeles environmental groups against the
enormous Playa Vista Phase 2 project has been affirmed by the California
Supreme Court, which denied a request by Playa Vista to review the
case. The L.A. Appeals Court ruling on September13th has completely
halted all work on the 110 acre development. The ruling wiped out both
the development approvals for an extremely dense project of 2600
condominiums and office and retail space, and also wiped out the zoning
that allowed such high density development.
The Appeals Court
found that the backers of this project had falsely described the project
as a huge reduction in what they were already allowed to build. Instead
the Court found that the project needed a huge"upzoning" to proceed,
but the truth of this was covered up from the public's view. It is
BEEP's view that this was a $300 million gift from the taxpayers and
residents of Los Angeles that should not have been allowed to happen
without the public's knowledge and without them being given the right to
reject it.
The result of this lawsuit is that this land
is now returned to the truthful pre-project zoning, effectively zoned
for agricultural uses and one 108,000 square foot commercial building,
which is around the size of a supermarket and drug store.
Before Playa Vista unleashed their bulldozers to this land a few years
ago, the land was covered with beanfields, wetlands and seasonal ponds.
It is our hope that this court victory will lead to a more enlightened
review of this development by our City Council.
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September 2007 Appeals Court Ruling: PLAYA VISTA LOSES HUGE CASE TO OPPONENTS
The court repeatedly called the City and developer’s statements
“untrue”, describing the project’s environmental analysis as “illusory”
and “materially misleading”.
Please Donate to Help Us Keep Up Our
Winning Streak! Tax deductible donations to BEEP’s legal fund can be
mailed to BEEP at P.O. Box 451153, Los Angles, CA 90045. We are an
IRS-recognized Charitable California Corporation. More information on
our projects is available at
http://saveallofballona.org/
9-14-2007
California Court of Appeal Overturns L.A. City Council’s
Approval to Expand the Playa Vista Development
Court Rules L.A. City Violated State and Local Environmental Laws
Ballona Southeast Safe for Now
LOS ANGELES –(September 13th, 2007) – The California Court of Appeal
today overturned all approvals of the 111 acre Phase 2 of the massive
Playa Vista development in West Los Angeles – essentially stopping the
project – because the City of Los Angeles violated state and local
environmental laws.
The court’s landmark ruling is a major
victory for the citizens of Los Angeles, the environment, civil rights
of Native Americans, and overall quality of life in Los Angeles. The
ruling covers two consolidated cases involving groups as diverse as
Ballona Wetlands Land Trust, the Tongva/Gabrieleno Tribal Council of San
Gabriel, city of Santa Monica, Surfrider Foundation and Ballona
Ecosystem Education Project.
The Court ruled: “We conclude
that the [Environmental Impact Report on the project] was deficient in
its analysis of land use impacts, mitigation of impacts on historical
archaeological resources, and wastewater impacts.”
ALL WORK MUST BE HALTED ON THE 111 ACRE SITE:
In addition, the Court ordered all project activities cease
immediately: “All construction activities on the project by any person
are hereby ordered to be stayed effective immediately. The superior
court is directed to issue an order enjoining all project activities
that it finds would prejudice the City’s consideration or implementation
of mitigation measures or alternatives and that could result in an
adverse change to the physical environment, until the City fully
complies with CEQA.”
The Court’s injunction is much tougher
than those usually granted to land use lawsuits: “The relief can be
limited to those portions of the determination, finding, or decision or
to specific project activities that are not in compliance with CEQA, but
only if the court finds that those portions or activities are
severable, that severance will not prejudice full compliance with CEQA,
and that the remainder of the project is not in noncompliance with
CEQA…We conclude that the misleading analysis of land use impacts,
failure to discuss preservation in place of historical archaeological
resources, and failure to properly analyze wastewater impacts rendered
the EIR as a whole deficient as an informational document, and that
these matters collectively are not severable from the project as a
whole.” (Page 113)
The full ruling may be read here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5SGRAMv8RXuN1FxZGxTYk5VSXc
The Court of Appeal directed that all City approvals be overturned and
permits revoked. The City must now comply with the California
Environmental Quality Act, write a new Environmental Impact Report
(“EIR”) and hold new public hearings. They must respond to public
comments and give the public and City Council an opportunity to
reconsider the proposed project or some alternative to it.
THE FALSE DOWNZONING (ISSUE IS IN BEEP’S CASE) :
The Land Use impact analysis that the court found so troubling was that
the project was claimed as a huge downzoning, and therefore a huge
down-sizing of impacts to the surrounding communities compared to a
project Playa Vista claimed they were legally entitled to build. Playa
Vista claimed they had the right to build a project including over 2.5
million square feet of office and retail space that would dump 36,000
cars a day onto local streets. In contrast, Playa Vista touted their
proposed condominium and office/retail project as dumping only 24,000
cars a day onto local streets, and that this was a huge concession based
on what they were legally allowed. The Court agreed with BEEP that
Playa Vista was not allowed to build this threatened project, but only
108,000 square feet of office space on the 111 acre site. The actual
zoning of the site allowed a development that would dump 1568 cars a day
onto local streets, or a difference between what Playa Vista claimed
they were entitled to and the true zoning of 15 to 1. So what Playa
Vista and the City claimed was a huge downsizing of their project was in
fact a huge increase in Playa Vista’s development rights. The public
had a right to know the true project that was being considered by the
City Council. The court repeatedly called the City and developer’s
statements “untrue”, describing the project’s environmental analysis as
“illusory” and “materially misleading”.
The reason Playa
Vista claimed they were entitled to such a huge project was based on
proposals they had made in the 1990’s. However, the Court agreed with
BEEP that Playa Vista had used up those development rights in their
300-plus acre First Phase project approved in 1993 and 1995, , which was
marked by controversies over wetlands, endangered species, traffic and a
huge taxpayer-subsidized benefit package granted by then-Governor Pete
Wilson and then-Mayor Richard Riordan.
Because Playa Vista and
the City claimed that the zoning of the land allowed such a huge amount
of development, it tainted the review of the legally mandated
alternatives to the project, such as a regional park or wetlands
restoration, by making them all “infeasible” due to the cost of buying
the land.
The Court’s action returns the zoning on the land
back to the 108,000 square foot office building that was the true zoning
at the beginning of the EIR process.
Rex Frankel, Director of
the Ballona Ecosystem Education Project stated, “If Playa Vista wants
to build more than that, they will have to honestly admit to the public
what they want and why they should be granted such a huge upzoning gift
by the City Council, and why they deserve even more corporate welfare
than they got in their first phase project. This victory for the people
of Los Angeles is a victory for telling the truth on development
decisions. The Court didn’t accept the developer’s masquerade about
benefits to the public that didn’t actually exist. Playa Vista and the
City threatened the public with a monster development that they could
never build as a club to beat us into submission and accept a slightly
smaller, but still enormous, project. In fact, the Court agreed with us
that Playa Vista never had the right to build this monster project.”
Briefs in BEEP's case can be found on their website,
http://saveallofballona.org/
Tax deductible donations to BEEP’s legal fund can be mailed to BEEP at P.O. Box 451153, Los Angeles, CA 90045
IMPACTS ON SANTA MONICA BAY AND SACRED ARCHEOLOGICAL SITES (ISSUES ARE
IN SANTA MONICA/BALLONA WETLANDS LANDS TRUST/SURFRIDER/TONGVA TRIBE
CASE) :
Tom Francis of the Ballona Wetlands Land Trust stated,
“The Court has given the City Council another chance to get it right.
The Council can save taxpayers millions of dollars, clean up Santa
Monica Bay, and avoid increased traffic congestion by approving the
alternative to more development at Ballona: a natural treatment wetland
with parks. We trust Councilman Bill Rosendahl and Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa will say “no” to more developer-driven land use planning,
and lead the way to greening Los Angeles by supporting alternatives such
as this one.”
Surfrider Foundation’s California Policy
Coordinator, Joe Geever, responded: “We are ecstatic that this issue is
finally seeing the light of day. Our major concern was that the City was
approving more pressure on out-dated sewage treatment capacity and
unabated urban runoff without fully understanding the additional adverse
impacts on coastal and ocean water quality and human health risks.”
The Court ruled that the City of Los Angeles, in its environmental
review of the project, failed to discuss methods or options of requiring
Playa Vista to preserve in place archaeological sites, including Native
American gravesites, impacted by the massive development. By omitting
this discussion, the City “effectively precluded both meaningful public
participation and informed decisionmaking with respect to the decision
on mitigation measures.” The Court required the City to return the
drawing board on the project, noting that the City had the discretion
under CEQA to consider restoring archaeological resources to their prior
resting places if already disturbed by Playa’s development.
In dealing with sewage, the EIR admitted that Playa Vista would cause
the City’s Hyperion treatment plant to overflow, and therefore require
expansion. But the EIR contained no evaluation of the impacts on Santa
Monica Bay from the Hyperion expansion that was necessitated by the
Playa Vista project.
Playa Vista’s 111-acre Phase 2 is the
largest, undeveloped, privately-owned parcel of land in the City of Los
Angeles. Until today’s ruling, the development was to include 2600
dwelling units, 175,000 square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet
of retail space and 40,000 square feet of other uses adding 24,000 new
daily car trips and paving over a portion of the historic Ballona
Wetlands ecosystem, favorably known as “Ballona Southeast.”
Numerous health and safety issues to residents and the environment have
plagued Playa Vista since its inception. Media investigations have
exposed a series of methane dangers at Playa Vista including methane gas
leaking through the so-called impermeable membranes placed under
buildings at Playa Vista Phase 1.
# # #
http://saveallofballona.org/
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MORE NEWS COVERAGE:
http://www.laweekly.com/news/playa-vista-quicksand-2150531
Playa Vista Quicksand
A rare court ruling against the developer puts the kibosh — for now — on a vast Phase Two
By Patrick Range McDonald
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Blank slate: Aerial view of the Playa Vista site in the early 1980s
IF
YOU LISTEN TO THE DEEP-POCKETED executives behind massive Playa Vista — a
controversial minicity plopped by City Hall planners onto the Ballona
Wetlands near Playa del Rey that has swamped Lincoln Boulevard and
helped gridlock many Westside intersections — a stunning appeals-court
ruling last week halting construction is merely an irritating hiccup.
But in 20 years of legal battles over the biggest residential
construction project in city history, whose cheek-by-jowl,
$3,000-per-month apartments have ushered in East Coast densities and
tiny patches dubbed green space, last week’s decision by the California
2nd District Court of Appeal could wreak havoc on the extensive Phase
Two. It couldn’t come at a more uncertain time for developers, or at a
better time for Westsiders who hate the hulking, multistory community,
as Southern California confronts an iffy housing market — and as some
Angelenos begin to decry a crush of overbuilding citywide.
“The
modifications are relatively minor,” sniffs Steve Soboroff, president
of Playa Capital, pledging unequivocally that Playa Vista “will continue
to completion.”
In fact, the 114-page brief written by the
three judges on the Court of Appeal is anything but minor. The jurists
didn’t just snatch away the keys for the bulldozers, handing the
project’s opponents their biggest courtroom victory in roughly two
decades. The three judges also ordered the city of Los Angeles to
“vacate” long-standing approvals by the Los Angeles City Council for the
second and final phase — and to decertify Playa Capital’s massive,
multimillion-dollar environmental-impact report.
The court says
that the EIR — years in the writing, and which contains hundreds of
paragraphs that set off word-by-word fights between federal and local
agencies, environmental organizations and politicians — must now
“revise” analysis of land-use impacts, “discuss” better preservation at
the site, and “identify” and “analyze” the disposal and environmental
impacts of wastewater.
In other words, developer Playa Capital, for now, is screwed.
“The court stopped the development cold,” says Doug Carstens, an
environmental attorney with the Santa Monica–based law firm
Chatten-Brown & Carstens. “It’s a sweeping decision.”
Carstens worked as co-counsel at the trial that culminated in last
week’s appellate ruling. At the trial last year, Los Angeles County
Superior Court Judge William F. Highberger found that the city and Playa
Capital followed proper approval procedures and that the
environmental-impact report was valid. But the appellate court
overturned Highberger’s decision last Thursday.
“People have been through a long, hard struggle,” says Carstens, “and they’ve been vindicated by the [state appeals] court.”
From the start, developers, environmentalists and journalists have
described Playa Vista as one of the most expensive, highly studied and
fought-over mixed-use projects in Los Angeles — with a price tag between
$4 billion and $7 billion. After years of negotiations and studies, the
3,246-unit first phase of imposing condos, pricey apartments and $1.9
million homes with postage-stamp yards is nearly complete. The final
phase — 111 acres of proposed housing, retail and office space dubbed
“The Village at Playa Vista” — now sits at the red-hot center of the
dispute.
BY NOW, THE TWO WARRING SIDES are sick of each
other. Playa Capital Co. and the city are the defendants in the current
lawsuit; the Ballona Wetlands Land Trust, Surfrider Foundation, city of
Santa Monica, Gabrieleno/Tongva Tribal Council of San Gabriel and
Ballona Ecosystem Education Project are the plaintiffs. Playa Capital
has won most of the 19 or so lawsuits over the past 20 years. It wasn’t
until 2005 that things stopped consistently going Playa Capital’s way.
That year, environmentalists won a comparatively minor appellate-court
decision forcing the city to someday fix a methane-gas removal system
installed beneath the housing, which sits atop an ancient riverbed and
pockets of potentially explosive gas.
Soboroff describes the
environmentalists as a “small group of people” who are “extremists.” Rex
Frankel, director of Ballona Ecosystem Education Project, counters that
Soboroff is a “desperate man” who heads a project that’s “one of the
biggest examples of corporate welfare in the history of Los Angeles.”
So when last week’s ruling was handed down, both sides grabbed for
their glory. Playa Capital released a press statement touting the
appellate court as having sided with “the city and Playa Capital on the
vast majority of issues raised,” with Soboroff sniping, “Despite the
professional project opponents, we remain confident that the Playa Vista
vision will ultimately be realized.”
Frankel sent out a
three-page missive the same day, declaring that “the court’s landmark
ruling is a major victory for the citizens of Los Angeles, the
environment, civil rights of Native Americans, and overall quality of
life.” Frankel throws his own verbal jab, saying, “The court didn’t
accept the developer’s masquerade about benefits to the public that
didn’t actually exist.”
Indeed, the state appeals court was
very specific in the three areas that went against Playa Capital and
City Hall. Wrote the judges, “The misleading analysis of land use
impacts, failure to discuss preservation in place of historical
archeological resources, and failure to properly analyze wastewater
impacts rendered the EIR as a whole deficient.” Those problems
“collectively are not severable from the project as a whole. The City
can achieve full compliance with CEQA [the California Environmental
Quality Act] only by vacating the project approvals that were based on
the certified EIR and revising the EIR to remedy these deficiencies.
Only then can the City . . . grant the project approvals.”
“It’s a very thorough, well-supported opinion,” says Frank P. Angel, a
highly regarded Santa Monica–based environmental lawyer, who is not
involved in the case. “It requires definite measures that need to be
followed up.”
Angel believes construction will be delayed
several months, at a minimum, to fix the environmental-impact report and
then guide it through a City Hall approval process that includes a
public-comment period, planning-department hearings and council meetings
— all potentially contentious and heavily lobbied. “A rush job on this
EIR won’t do,” says Angel. “It’s not a matter of one or two months.”
Steve Soboroff, though, sounds like a man who doesn’t plan to satisfy
the appellate court. “The idea of now going back and changing that plan
is not good public policy,” he says, “and it’s not going to happen.” He
ridiculed the appellate court as having merely “found some flint” —
small issues in the EIR upon which to base their ruling.
Playa
Capital, according to Soboroff, is looking at legal options that might
release the project from construction limbo and push it forward. The
developer is uncertain if he’ll seek an appeal with the California
Supreme Court or request a rehearing with the appeals court. The city,
according to City Attorney’s Office spokesman Nick Velasquez, is “still
reviewing its options.”
Frank Angel and Doug Carstens, however,
note that the state Supreme Court considers only 5 percent of the
appeal requests it receives. And since the appellate court’s ruling was
“not published,” meaning it doesn’t set any precedent for other cases,
the Supreme Court will probably be even less interested in Playa
Capital’s appeal. “It’s highly unlikely,” says Angel.
In the
meantime, Soboroff says, Playa Vista workers will face job cutbacks, and
Westside renters and buyers will have to wait longer for the Village’s
new housing, slated to rise between the 405 freeway and what remains of
the wetlands.
“[The Village] is for working people,” Soboroff
says excitedly during a phone interview. “It’s work-force housing!” When
Rex Frankel hears these things, he can only laugh. “For Soboroff to
claim he’s for the workingman is ridiculous,” he says with a chuckle.
“It’s a super-rich man’s community.”
It’s still unclear if the
appellate court’s ruling means the end of development at Playa Vista.
Frankel, of course, hopes so. Soboroff says no. Eric Sussman, a real
estate expert and award-winning lecturer at UCLA’s Anderson Graduate
School of Management, also thinks not, citing pressure for housing on
the Westside and Playa Capital’s tenacity.
“There hasn’t been a
roadblock they haven’t encountered,” says Sussman. “I doubt it would
kill the project entirely. I would be very surprised.”
Then
again, the environmentalists haven’t gone away either, and now they’ve
had their first big victory in the court of appeals, following their
more modest victory over methane control. Frankel, who’s been fighting
the Ballona Wetlands battle for 22 years, calls it “karmic payback.” The
momentum, so long on the side of Playa Capital, may be shifting.
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Playa Vista Phase 2 construction halted
http://argonautnews.com/playa-vista-phase-2-construction-halted/
The appeals court overturned all city approvals for the project and revoked all the construction permits
BY GARY WALKER
A state appeals court in Los Angeles voted unanimously to halt
construction on the second stage of commercial and residential
development for Playa Vista, dealing the Playa Vista Capital real estate
group a powerful and potentially costly legal setback.
The
California Second District Court of Appeal found that the Los Angeles
City Council violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
after it approved an environmental impact report that permitted
construction for the development's second phase in 2005.
"The [environmental impact report on the project] was deficient in its
analysis of land use impacts, mitigation of impacts on historical
archaeological resources, and wastewater impacts," the court declared in
its ruling.
The California Environmental Quality Act, a landmark
state environmental statute, is the basis for environmental law and
policy to protect environmental quality in California.
The
judicial order covers two consolidated cases involving groups as diverse
as the Ballona Wetlands Land Trust, the Tongva/Gabrieleno Tribal
Council of San Gabriel, the City of Santa Monica, the Surfrider
Foundation and the Ballona Ecosystem Education Project.
The
verdict calls for the immediate stoppage of construction of the 111-acre
Phase 2 project, which includes The Village at Playa Vista, the
commercial linchpin of the development.
The appellate court
overturned all city approvals for the project and revoked all of the
permits acquired for the construction work.
Under the court
ruling, Los Angeles City Council is mandated to comply with CEQA, write a
new environmental impact report (EIR) and hold new public hearings.
Amenities
for The Village include new public parks, a neighborhood retail center
and 2,600 residential units. It was slated to have 175,000 square feet
of office space, 150,000 square feet of retail space and 40,000 square
feet of other uses.
As part of the second phase, traffic improvements have been added to increase the flow of traffic on Jefferson Boulevard.
"All
construction activities on the project by any person are hereby ordered
to be stayed effective immediately," the court ordered. "The Superior
Court is directed to issue an order enjoining all project activities
that it finds would prejudice the city's consideration or implementation
of mitigation measures or alternatives and that could result in an
adverse change to the physical environment, until the city fully
complies with CEQA."
The legal action overturns a previous
decision by a lower court that upheld the City Council's approval of the
EIR on January 10th.
Environmental organizations that have opposed Playa Vista throughout its development wasted no time in cheering the court edict.
Rex
Frankel, president of the Ballona Ecosystem Education Project stated,
"This victory for the people of Los Angeles is a victory for telling the
truth on development decisions. The court rejected the developer's
masquerade about benefits to the public, which in fact did not actually
exist.
"The Playa Vista developers threatened the public with a
monster development to beat the public into submission to accept a
slightly smaller, but still enormous, project. However, the court agreed
with us that the developers never had the rights to build this monster
project in the first place."
Joe Geever, the Surfrider Foundation's state policy director, also focused on the size and scope of the development project.
"We
are ecstatic that the issue of questionable wastewater planning and
associated environmental impacts is finally seeing the light of day,"
Geever said. "Our major concern was that the city was approving more
pressure on outdated sewage treatment capacity and unabated urban runoff
without fully understanding the additional adverse impacts on coastal
and ocean water quality and human health risks."
Los Angeles City
Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose district includes Playa Vista, called
the court's decision "a very significant judgment and important news for
our community."
Rosendahl, who was not on the City Council when
Phase 1 was approved, pointed out that he opposed the second stage of
the development.
During the 2005 campaign for the council seat
that he currently holds, Rosendahl believes that his opposition to the
second stage of Playa Vista's development project was, in his words,
"the defining moment of the campaign."
Anthony Morales, chief of the Tongva/Gabrieleno Tribal Council of San Gabriel, views the verdict as a victory for his tribe.
"We're
hoping that a right can be done after enduring all of the wrongs that
we've had to suffer during this case," he told The Argonaut.
Part
of the recent construction project encompasses a Tongva/ Gabrieleno
burial ground, which Native Americans consider to be sacred.
"The developer was desecrating our burial grounds," Morales alleged. "Building a development there was an atrocity."
The tribal chief is pleased that construction has been halted after his prior pleas in front of the council were rebuffed.
"Our
message from the beginning has been that the council should have
stepped in and stopped the developer from desecrating our sacred burial
grounds," he said. "What the Los Angeles City Council did was shameful."
Typically,
if a gravesite or burial ground is within a project of this magnitude,
it would have been stopped earlier, says Robin Turner, an archeologist
and paleontologist who works on EIR projects throughout California and
is very familiar with CEQA regulations.
"(Los Angeles) should have stepped in and looked at this much more closely," Turner said.
Sabrina
Venskus, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, feels that the decision
to stop further construction of the project was not typical of the way
most appellate decisions are handed down.
"This is somewhat
unusual for a court to issue an immediate stay," Venskus said. "Usually
an injunction is sent to the trial court where the injunction or remedy
is implemented.
"I think that it was compelling to the court that
we provided evidence that Playa Vista continued to do construction work
in the face of litigation."
The subject of the Native American burial ground also has significance, Venskus said.
"The
court gave the council the authority to have the remains of the
Tongva/Gabrieleno tribe's ancestors re-interred on the hillside burial
grounds," she said. "The question is, 'Will the council request that the
developer bring those remains back to their burial ground?'"
Steven
Sugerman, a Playa Vista spokesman, believes that there is a silver
lining to the court's verdict. Despite the court siding with the
plaintiffs on land use, the availability of wastewater and the
preservation of archaeological resources, Playa Vista did prevail on the
the analysis of methane gas mitigation and transportation impacts, he
pointed out.
"The same opponent groups who have been alleging
Playa Vista has not mitigated these issues were a part of the lawsuit
and they were rejected," Sugerman noted.
Although the appellate
court sided against the development company on the major issues of the
case, Playa Vista president Steve Soboroff stated that several
components of the residential and commercial complex would continue.
"The
Playa Vista community continues to thrive, and this ruling will not in
any way alter our plans to achieve the ultimate vision of this wonderful
community that is now home to 5,000 residents and growing," Soboroff
said. "Development of the commercial campus is proceeding with the best
developers in America, and the Clippers [basketball team] training
facility is expected to be completed next year.
"Despite the professional project opponents, we remain confident that the Playa Vista vision will ultimately be realized."
Venskus,
an attorney who specializes in environmental law, acknowledged that the
defendant's arguments regarding methane gas mitigation and
transportation were upheld by the court, but she feels the ruling
addressed the most important environmental aspects of the case.
"There
are no other cases that I am aware of that address wastewater treatment
and availability, and that was one of the key issues that the court
ruled on in this case," Venskus said. She mentioned a recent California
Supreme Court ruling where the plaintiffs in a land use case prevailed,
and the appellate court touched on similar points in its verdict last
week.
"That's why this case is so important," Venskus asserted.
"It is a landmark decision in the sense that it applies Supreme Court
reasoning to the process of availability of water treatment."
Morales,
the Native American tribal chief, was primarily concerned about his
tribe's ancestral burial grounds but also about the large swath of
wetlands that was used to build Playa Vista.
"Part of our culture
is respect for the land," he explained. "Our people used to camp near
the wetlands, and when we see what the developer has done there, it's
like part of our history and our culture has been destroyed."
Venskus
believes that the appellate court edict can serve as a cautionary tale
to agencies that are charged with reviewing environmental impact reports
and the consequences of failing to take into account the definition of
CEQA, the landmark state environmental statute.
"City councils
need to read their EIRs very carefully and not rely on developers to
interpret them," Venskus recommends. "They need to start listening to
the public and do the right thing for all parties involved."
Turner
agrees, adding, "If a city is smart, they should have a CEQA expert on
staff so that they won't have to go through litigation. A lot of cities
don't understand the law, but that's no excuse."
Rosendahl said
that the next step for him would be to explore all of the legal
possibilities and ramifications of the verdict and where he and his
council colleagues go from here.
"Right now, we don't know what
the immediate effects (of the judgment) are," said the councilman. "I
will be meeting with our city attorney to see what the next course of
action should be to fully digest and understand the implications of the
ruling, and to get a better sense of what issues will return to the City
Council for review."
Executives of Playa Vista Capital are
contemplating whether or not to consider further litigation of the case.
Their options include requesting another hearing in front of the
appellate court or petitioning the California Supreme Court.
"Playa
Vista is a model community for the nation," said Soboroff. "We look
forward to completing the necessary legal steps and proceeding with the
second and final phase that will deliver substantial community benefits,
including workforce housing, open space, public parks, regional
transportation improvements and neighborhood -serving retail."
Venskus
is hopeful that the City Council will consider the wishes of her
clients, the environmental community and the significance of the verdict
if they decide to craft another EIR.
"This is an opportunity for
the City Council to do the right thing by its constituents, and my
clients are confident in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was against the
second phase of Playa Vista, and councilmembers like Bill Rosendahl —
we are optimistic that they will do what's right."
