A Westside group is suing Los Angeles over its plan to allow more dense development around five Metro Expo Line stations and possibly lead to thousands of residential units built.
The group, called Fix The City, filed a complaint last week that argued L.A. must first assess and repair West Los Angeles’ “overburdened and inadequate infrastructure” before allowing increased development, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“For everybody who drives through gridlocked traffic and hits a pothole, for everybody who trips and falls on a sidewalk, for every cyclist who bumps into a broken gutter, this one’s for them,” said Fix The City board member Laura Lake.
The lawsuit could delay or possibly overturn the Exposition Corridor Transit Neighborhood Plan the city passed in July. The plan allows for the development of around 6,000 apartment and condo units, as well as taller office towers, by 2035. All of the construction must be within a half-mile of stations from the Culver City to the Expo/Bundy stations. The plan has the support of local council members, including Mike Bonin.
Fix the City has filed numerous lawsuits against individual development projects and city plans over the last six years. In April, it persuaded a judge to order work stopped at a Koreatown project developed by Michael Hakim.
Last year, another grassroots organization, Century Glen, alleged Fit the City received $3.1 million from mall owner Westfield to stop protesting the company’s plans to eliminate free parking at its Century City mall. The payout was criticized as “hush money.”
Fix the City is also pushing the city to tear down Mohamed Hadid’s stalled spec mansion on Strada Vecchia in Bel Air. [LAT] — Dennis Lynch