Galanter Voices Opposition to Playa Vista Plan : Development: Councilwoman says the environmental report does not contain adequate measures to offset the impact of construction near Marina del Rey.

In a surprise, Los Angeles Councilwoman Ruth Galanter announced Thursday she opposes the first phase of the vast Playa Vista development near Marina del Rey.

Galanter wrote in a long letter to city planners that the project’s lengthy environmental impact report is inadequate and does not contain sufficient measures to offset the environmental impacts that would be caused by building one of the biggest developments in the city’s history.

“Based on the information presented in the draft environmental impact report, I am not yet ready to say this project is buildable,” Galanter said in an interview.

“If we are going to be approving a project of this magnitude, we need to have real assurances that the environmental impacts will be mitigated,” she said. “Based on the environmental impact report we have today, we don’t have that assurance.”

Since Galanter represents the Playa Vista area, her sharp criticism could slow down the multibillion-dollar project at a critical time. Developer Maguire Thomas Partners is poised to seek city approval in coming months for the first phase.

In a 19-page letter, Galanter raised numerous questions about the project’s voluminous draft environmental impact report issued in October. She expressed concern about inadequate open space, air quality monitoring, treatment of storm water runoff and a lack of affordable housing.

Galanter’s comments mark the first time since her election as a slow-growth candidate five years ago that she has been openly critical of Playa Vista. Galanter made her position known on the deadline for submitting comments on the environmental report.

Maguire Thomas senior partner Nelson Rising defended the project as sound and said Galanter’s comments and those of others would be addressed in a final environmental report on the project’s first phase.

Rising said the design sets a new standard for development in Los Angeles. “There has never been a project proposed in this basin that is as sensitive to the environment,” he said.

While praising Maguire Thomas for its willingness to take an innovative approach to the development of one of the largest pieces of open land on the city’s Westside, Galanter said the developer “hasn’t gone far enough.”

Maguire Thomas wants to build a city within a city on most of the open land between Marina del Rey and the Westchester Bluffs. The residential, commercial, retail, hotel and marina project would provide enough housing for 28,625 residents and a workplace for almost 20,000 people.

She said her review of the environmental document “suggests to me that it does not meet the standards of the California Environmental Quality Act for adequacy. It does not fully cover the entire proposed project. It does not propose adequate mitigation measures for the proposed project. It does not provide realistic project alternatives. . . .”

However, Galanter said the plans are a vast improvement over the high-rise development proposed in the early 1980s by Summa Corp., the real estate arm of the late industrialist Howard Hughes’ empire. Summa remains a partner in the current venture.

Since taking over the project almost four years ago, Maguire Thomas has completely redesigned it, eliminated high-rise office towers and a regional shopping center and sharply increased the number of residential units.

The latest plans call for building 13,085 apartments, townhouses and condominiums, 5 million square feet of office space, 595,000 square feet of retail space, 1,050 hotel rooms, and a yacht harbor with docks for up to 840 boats.

Galanter said Maguire Thomas’ proposal is far better than the Summa design. “Even so,” she said, “I have major doubts as to the viability of any project so dependent on high-end office space and upscale housing when the region’s needs appear to be evolving away from them.”

Rising noted that representatives of the South Coast Air Quality Management District and Southern California Assn. of Governments praised the project for design and effort to provide alternatives to the automobile.

But Galanter questioned the underpinning of the plan to discourage driving by placing jobs close to housing.

She said the 15% of the project’s units devoted to affordable housing will not assure that employees at Playa Vista can live there.

She said the project must not exclude first-time home buyers, young families and working people from moderate to solid middle-class income levels.

“Without serious accommodation of their housing needs, the entire Playa Vista plan is likely to live up to its critics’ worst nightmares for negative traffic impacts both near-site and sub-regionally.”