Advertisement

STUDIO CITY : MCA Discussing Plan With Residents

Share

Three months after postponing a public hearing on a controversial 10-story parking garage, officials from MCA Inc. are meeting with neighbors to hear their concerns, the company said Friday.

“We’re sitting down with the different organizations and getting their input,” said Christine Hanson, MCA vice president for corporate communications. “We’ve been criticized for not doing that in the past.”

Hanson said she has so far met with groups from Studio City, Hollywood Knolls and Toluca Lake and has a meeting tentatively set for next week with an organization from Cahuenga Pass.

Advertisement

Chief among residents’ concerns, she said, was how the 2,000-car garage would impact traffic flow on nearby Barham and Cahuenga boulevards.

The 1-million-square-foot garage is proposed for a hillside area northeast of the Hollywood Freeway between Lankershim Boulevard and Universal City Drive, which is designated as a scenic corridor.

Opposition to the garage has been mounting among area residents since plans for the structure were tentatively approved by the environmental section of the Planning Department in April.

A hearing on the structure was postponed in June at the request of MCA, a zoning official said, so the company could meet with homeowners in the area.

Polly Ward, a board member and past president of the Studio City Residents Assn., said it is unclear to her if the proposal has changed since June.

“We still don’t know what the garage is going to be,” Ward said. “When they come forward with that we’ll have something to talk about.”

Advertisement

Among the items to be considered at the upcoming hearing before a city zoning administrator is a request by the Studio City Residents Assn. that a formal environmental review be done on the project.

“It’s too big. It’s too imposing,” said Michael Wester, president of the Cahuenga Pass Property Owners Assn. “At the very least, I think a project like this would require a full environmental impact report.”

Advertisement