Community Impact Statement

FOR: PROPOSED PLAYA VISTA PHASE TWO

Dt: August 24, 2004

To: Members of the Planning and Land Use Management (“PLUM”) Committee and Los Angeles City Council

Fr: Grassroots Venice Neighborhood Council

Re: Proposed Playa Vista Phase Two development (“PROJECT”)

SUMMARY [100 words]

By unanimous vote, the GRVNC opposes the Project as submitted. GRVNC has requested numerous times, on the record, ample opportunity to review Planning’s approval documents prior to decision-making bodies’ hearings and decisions on the matter. These requests have never been honored. Further, to date, GRVNC has not been able to meet with Councilwoman Miscikowski to discuss our concerns about the Project.

GRVNC believes its concerns raised during the environmental review process have not been adequately addressed. We request that the PLUM Committee postpone its September 8, 2004 hearing and consideration of the Project until GRVNC’s concerns have been substantially addressed.

FULL STATEMENT

GRVNC’s most significant concerns with the proposed Project that have not been addressed by the City include the following:

A) The EIR is fatally flawed (See attached: GRVNC Land Use and Planning Committee’s [“LUPC”] replies to the City’s Responses to GRVNC’s comments on the EIR with exhibits).

B) The planned First Phase of the Playa Vista project is only partially built and its full impacts on communities surrounding the project such as Venice have not yet been felt.

The First Phase Project was approved by the City Council in 1993 based upon the premise that no additional phases of the Playa Vista development would be approved until the Phase One was completed and in full operation. The purpose for this was so that adverse affects could be actually felt and, if necessary, future phases could either be downsized or abandoned altogether.

C) If the Phase Two is approved as currently proposed, the entire Playa Vista project will result in 80,000 new vehicle trips per day jamming the 405 Freeway, Lincoln Blvd, and Walgrove and Palms Avenues, and will therefore cause a significant increase in new traffic cutting through our neighborhoods on smaller local streets.

To provide context, Mayor Hahn and the Los Angeles City Council opposed the Ahmanson Ranch project because it would have added 35,000 car tips per day to Los Angeles’ streets. In contrast, the Playa Vista project would add more than twice that amount of vehicle trips to an area of Los Angeles that is severely limited in its traffic capacity due to the fact the only North-South arterials adjacent to the project are Lincoln, Sepulveda and the 405.

D) The destruction of over 400 Native American Gabrielino/Tongva Indian burial sites must be stopped, and the sacred burial grounds be preserved. This was neither acknowledged in the EIR, nor was it addressed by the Central Planning Commission in its approval of the Phase Two project.

E) The City of Los Angeles has not analyzed the use of the approximately 200 acres of undeveloped historical wetlands remaining in "Area D" to be used: (a) as badly needed open space; (b) as treatment wetlands to cleanse water in Ballona Creek and in Santa Monica Bay; (c) and to recharge the aquifer below for beneficial use.