Traffic--and More Traffic : Playa Vista Proposal Renews Battle Over Marina Area Building

For the thousands who drive to Los Angeles International Airport each day, a long-running fight against major planned developments in the area, including a mammoth hotel, office and marina project near Marina del Rey, has taken on new importance.

Citing new figures and analyses, opponents are warning of more traffic jams in a broad strip from the beach to about five miles inland, running from the airport to Santa Monica.

Specifically, they cite projections of traffic from the Playa Vista development adjacent to Marina del Rey, the Howard Hughes Center at Sepulveda Boulevard and the San Diego Freeway near Fox Hills Mall, Continental City at Aviation Boulevard and Imperial Highway and a planned development on the north side of the airport.

The current focal point of the protests is Summa Corp.’s Playa Vista project, on coastal land bought by the late Howard Hughes many years ago. New development there aims at providing offices, homes and apartments for 20,000 people, along with between 700 to 900 new boat slips directly across the channel from Marina del Rey, the big residential, restaurant, hotel and boating development created by the county.

Opponents hope to stop Playa Vista before government agencies give final approval. On Tuesday, the California Coastal Commission is scheduled to make a final decision on a land-use plan for Playa Vista. And the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors must decide whether to allow Summa to cut through a strip of county-owned waterfront land for access to the channel. Such access is needed if the Playa Vista marina is to be built. No date has been set for that key supervisorial vote.

The dispute over Playa Vista has become tied up with controversy over the other developments because of the volume of additional traffic expected as a result of business growth around the airport. City officials envision commercial centers building up on all sides of the airport, including hotels and other businesses, particularly those trading with Los Angeles’ partners on the Pacific Rim.

The issue has also taken on citywide political importance.

Development in the coastal-airport area has become part of the fight over slow growth vs. development that is shaping up in Los Angeles, a fight that took a major anti-development turn in November with overwhelming voter approval of Proposition U, the ballot measure that limits construction of commercial buildings in some neighborhoods.

The coastal corridor area city councilwoman, Pat Russell, who is allied with Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana in pushing Playa Vista and who favors the other developments in the area, opposed Proposition U. That made her a target of those hostile to traditional Los Angeles city development policies, and they are expected to attack her vigorously when she seeks reelection next April.

New figures on traffic congestion are contained in a lengthy analysis of Los Angeles’ Coastal Transportation Corridor Specific Plan, which was pushed by Russell to solve traffic problems in the area. The analysis, highly critical of the corridor plan, was done by Rubell Helgeson, a UCLA planning graduate student who has been a longtime community leader in Pacific Palisades.

The coastal corridor runs from the airport north to Santa Monica.

Although Helgeson’s paper has been criticized as being merely the work of a student, it has been embraced by Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), who is emerging as a major foe of city development policies.

“The study shows that (the corridor plan) would ruin the quality of life in the area and that the planning process in the city is a complete sham,” Hayden said. He said his staff will present the report to the Coastal Commission on Tuesday.

Under the corridor plan, approved by the City Council and signed by Mayor Tom Bradley earlier in the year, developers of major projects are charged $2,010 for each vehicle trip their projects would add to traffic during the heaviest traffic hour of the day.

That money would be used for huge traffic-easing programs that would have a major effect on the communities of Westchester, Venice, Palms, Playa del Rey, Mar Vista and a newly annexed city area in the Playa Vista project, as well as the neighboring cities of Culver City and Santa Monica.

Among the major street widenings proposed in the city plan: Centinela Avenue to six lanes from Sepulveda Boulevard to National Boulevard, Sepulveda Boulevard to eight lanes from Lincoln Boulevard to Centinela Avenue, Lincoln Boulevard to six lanes north of Venice Boulevard, Culver Boulevard to six lanes from the Marina Freeway to Sepulveda Boulevard, Marina Freeway extended to Lincoln Boulevard and Airport Boulevard to six lanes, including the part under the airport runways.

Russell aide Steve Andrews said the plan “is a very important conceptual breakthrough in the way the city deals with its infrastructure.”

He said: “Previously, development was not required to mitigate its impact. Here, development is analyzed, and if you build bigger you pay more money and if you build little you pay less.”

Helgeson said the revenue from the developers will not pay for the traffic improvements envisioned by the plan or prevent traffic jams.

Under one estimate in the plan, she said, the development fees “would generate less than $2 million, enough to pay for half the estimated cost of the single most costly infrastructure improvement in the corridor plan, the $81-million new airport tunnel (Airport Boulevard under the airport runways).”

‘Hopelessly Inadequate’

But, she said, the plan presents “conflicting sets of traffic projections” and “used them selectively.” Another projection, she said, showed higher revenue from more development. But her analysis of that projection showed “the planned infrastructure improvements will be hopelessly inadequate to handle the traffic generated.

“In either case, whether the improvements are unfunded or simply outpaced by the growth of traffic, the decongestion which is the plan’s central goal will not occur,” Helgeson wrote.

Andrews replied that Helgeson “misses the point completely. The fee was never intended to cover the cost of all the improvements.”

‘Worst-Case Scenario’

The fees, he said, were designed to pay for the cost of traffic generated by individual developments. The big widening projects spelled out in the plan, he said, are for the entire area, including “everything everyone could think of” to provide the “transportation required for a worst-case scenario.”

Playa Vista developers, finding themselves at the center of the controversy over airport and coastline congestion, said they are providing major traffic improvements that will more than take care of traffic caused by their project.

Christine Henry, spokeswoman for Howard Hughes Properties, the Summa group developing Playa Vista, said Summa is paying for major street expansions, including widening Lincoln Boulevard to six lanes from Sepulveda Boulevard to 83rd Street, widening Culver Boulevard to six lanes between the Marina Freeway interchange and Jefferson Boulevard, extending Admiralty Way and widening Hughes Way from Lincoln Boulevard to Jefferson Boulevard.

“The upshot is what you get is increased north-south circulation,” she said. “Our regional improvements are not just to serve Playa Vista. Only 50% (of the capacity) will be used by us. We are adding 50% for the region.”