NEWS ANALYSIS : Playa Vista Report Raises New Questions : Development: Touted as a model for future building in Los Angeles, the project is facing scrutiny since the release of its environmental impact study.

In recent years, the public image of Playa Vista was carefully crafted by the developer to win public support for the mega project. In public forums and private meetings, the development was sold as an environmentally sensitive model for future building in Los Angeles.

Playa Vista was portrayed as a new kind of community where people could live and work, free from dependence on the automobile. Unlike previous attempts to build on the open land between Marina del Rey and the Westchester Bluffs, the vast development drew only muted criticism.

Until now.

In a year-end blizzard of paper, prominent elected officials, environmental organizations and some individuals have raised more questions about the development than ever before.

Their comments on Playa Vista’s draft environmental impact report mark the first time since Maguire Thomas Partners took over the project almost four years ago that plans for building the new community have received intense scrutiny.

Such criticism was inevitable in the give-and-take over one of the biggest developments in Los Angeles history. The voluminous environmental document, which took more than two years and $4 million to prepare, offered far more detail about the project’s impact than had ever been presented publicly.

The depth of the responses to the environmental report suggest that final approval to begin building Playa Vista is not yet a certainty.

After years of planning, Maguire Thomas wants swift approval from the City of Los Angeles to begin construction of Playa Vista’s first phase.

Amounting to a quarter of the entire project, the first stage consists of 3,246 apartments and condominiums, 1.25 million square feet of office space, 35,000 square feet of retail space and 300 hotel rooms.

Ultimately, plans call for a residential, office, hotel, retail and marina community to be home to 28,625 residents and a workplace for 20,000 people. But first, Playa Vista must clear several major hurdles--environmental, political and financial.

Before any action can be taken, a final environmental impact report responding to the issues raised in the public comments must be prepared.

Maguire Thomas senior partner Nelson Rising said the latest comments will be addressed point-by-point in the final document.

In the meantime, Maguire Thomas must garner political support from the city Planning Commission and the City Council. Financial backing for the multibillion-dollar undertaking must be secured.

On New Year’s Eve--the deadline for comment on the environmental report--Maguire Thomas received a blunt reminder that Playa Vista has not reached the finish line.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Ruth Galanter signaled that she is not yet ready to sign off on the largest development planned for her district.

In a strongly worded press release, Galanter said she opposes the first phase of Playa Vista. And in an accompanying 19-page letter to city planners, she sharply criticized the environmental document as inadequate.

Galanter complained that the environmental report does not propose adequate mitigation measures. And she expressed major doubts about 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.”

The councilwoman expressed concern about Playa Vista’s impact on air quality, traffic, open space and views from the Westchester Bluffs. She warned about the effect of storm water runoff laden with oil and grease on the Ballona Wetlands, which Maguire Thomas has pledged to preserve and restore.

Galanter declared that a proposed treatment plant to conserve water by processing and reusing some of the project’s waste water is an absolute prerequisite for her support. She also expressed a desire to see Maguire Thomas build facilities to recycle trash and organic wastes.

But most of all, Galanter expressed doubts about the reality of one of the underpinnings of the project--that Playa Vista residents will live and work close enough to minimize commuting and cut traffic.

She questioned the so-called balance between jobs and housing based on EIR figures showing that prices of condominiums at Playa Vista will start at $250,000 and rents will range between $800 and $2,000 a month.

Although Maguire Thomas has promised that 15% of the project’s units will be affordable to people with low to moderate incomes, Galanter said, “the minimal commitment to providing affordable units on-site promotes weakness in the overall jobs/housing balance and traffic mitigation measures.”

Galanter said in an interview that it is critical that the project contain the right mixture of jobs and housing.

While praising Maguire Thomas’ efforts, Galanter said it was premature to support Playa Vista without assurances that the adverse impacts of the development can be mitigated.

Her criticism came several weeks after newly elected state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) first expressed his opposition to the Playa Vista plan in more strident terms.

In his own letter to city planners, Hayden was far more critical of the project. “The stresses caused by its enormous impact will be felt for decades to come, not only in a diminished quality of urban life, but in further overloading the ecosystem on which we all depend,” Hayden said.

The lawmaker expressed concern about gridlock, degraded air quality and potential impacts on the Ballona Wetlands and Santa Monica Bay.

“It’s one thing to see a slide show projecting the view of a developer,” he said in an interview. “It’s another thing to read the hard print of a 2,000-page environmental impact report.”

And in an unusual comment, Hayden questioned whether in the aftermath of last April’s riots, Los Angeles should “continue to overdevelop its outer residential rings of affluence while neglecting to invest in development of the impoverished inner city.”

He expressed hope that environmentalists will oppose Playa Vista. “Somebody has to put a stop to the rampant overdevelopment of Los Angeles,” Hayden said.

Despite such rhetoric, Maguire Thomas’ approach won praise from such prominent environmental groups as Friends of Ballona Wetlands and Heal the Bay.

Although both groups submitted lengthy comments critical of the environmental impact report, especially on water quality issues, they prefaced their remarks with kudos for the developer.

Heal the Bay commended Maguire Thomas and its consultants for their “openness, candor and patience” and for “involving and informing the public.”

“The result to date is that the Playa Vista development provides a number of unprecedented strategies for mitigating the project’s adverse environmental impacts,” the group said.

But both Heal the Bay and the Friends of Ballona Wetlands want more assurances on the viability of Maguire Thomas’ plans to protect and to restore the largest remaining coastal wetland in Los Angeles County.

Of particular concern is the developer’s proposal to cleanse runoff headed for Santa Monica Bay by creating a new stream at the base of the Westchester Bluffs that will flow into a fresh water wetland west of Lincoln Boulevard.

The Friends, an environmental group that sued and blocked a previous design of Playa Vista, said until its questions are satisfactorily answered, the organization “cannot say that the proposed project will not have an adverse impact on the wetlands.”

Despite its reservations, the organization’s attorney, Josephine Powe, made clear that the group is convinced that Maguire Thomas’ plan “with adequate mitigation incorporated, appears to be the most likely and fastest way to get the wetlands protected and restored.”

Powe noted the chances of the city or someone else having the money to purchase the property for a regional park are extremely remote.

Heal the Bay said great sensitivity must be shown to the potential impact of the development and pollutants in storm water runoff, on the adjacent wetlands.

The Santa Monica-based environmental group concluded that the project should not be permitted without Maguire Thomas’ firm commitment to construct the waste water and recycling facilities.

The project was also sharply criticized by Paul Doebler, president of the Coastal Area Support Team, a group concerned with development along heavily-traveled Lincoln Boulevard.

Doebler estimated the project’s housing units will be affordable to only 7% to 9% of the employees who will work at Playa Vista. Like Galanter, he said a balance between housing cost and the pay level of the jobs is essential.

Jeffrey N. Jones, co-chairman of the Coastal Protection Subcommittee of the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter, submitted comments objecting to the project’s scale and “overwhelming” impacts.

“We do not want a terrestrial Titanic built in one of the last open space habitats remaining in the coastal lowlands of Southern California,” Jones wrote.

The project also drew detailed comments from Caltrans about the effect Playa Vista might have on the San Diego Freeway and other state highways. “We have concerns about the capability of the roadway pavement and the adequacy of the existing traffic lanes to accommodate the additional traffic generated by this project,” a transportation official wrote.

Maguire Thomas’ Rising minimized the significance of the negative comments, saying most of the issues raised were discussed in the environmental impact report or a three-foot stack of appendixes. He expressed confidence that the questions could be adequately answered by the city and its consultants in the final environmental impact report.

With the project entering a crucial stage, Rising is planning a campaign to win support for Playa Vista, which he believes is a model for future development. “There has never been a project proposed in this basin that is as sensitive to the environment,” he said.

To bolster the point, Rising pointed to favorable reviews the Playa Vista design received from the Southern California Assn. of Governments and the South Coast Air Quality Management District at a recent public hearing.

He pointedly noted the plan calls for protection and restoration of 260 acres of wetlands. Despite questions, he said the plan for treating storm water runoff will work.

As for criticism of the project’s much-touted jobs/housing balance, he said Playa Vista will provide “a full range of affordability.”