Judge Rejects Bid to Halt DreamWorks Studio Project

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge Monday cleared the way for construction of the DreamWorks SKG studios and the adjoining Playa Vista development, rejecting the arguments of opponents who said the project has not undergone adequate environmental review.

The ruling by Judge David A. Horowitz means that the studio--the brainchild of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen--may begin to rise near Marina del Rey by the end of the year.

“We are delighted with the judge’s ruling,” said Michael Montgomery, a senior executive with DreamWorks. “Our principals are now and have always been concerned with the environmental issues at Playa Vista and we plan to continue to work with leading environmental groups . . . on issues surrounding the property.”

Said Robert Maguire, a principal with the developer of the larger Playa Vista project: “This really clears the way for us to go full speed ahead.”

Several environmental and community organizations led by the Earth Trust Foundation filed suit in January, demanding that the first phase of the $7-billion project be subjected to a full environmental impact report. One of the plaintiffs said Monday that an appeal is a “distinct possibility.”

“We are determined that our efforts to save those wetlands will continue,” said Bruce Robertson, a director of the Ballona Valley Preservation League. “They may have the local political system locked up, but our real day of justice may be in the appellate court.”

The developer, studio chiefs and Los Angeles city officials argued that the site had been exhaustively reviewed when it originally was designed as an office, housing and retail center. They said vehicle traffic and other concerns actually will be diminished by a change in plans that creates a 3.2-million-square-foot studio and entertainment campus, where standard office space had once been proposed.

Horowitz concurred, saying that the city’s limited reassessment of the effects of studio construction complied with the state’s Environmental Quality Act. “No discussion of impacts was avoided,” Horowitz wrote in an eight-page ruling. He added that “the changes in the project were not so substantial as to require major modification to the environmental impact report.”

A source close to the studio said the judge’s decision should help attract investors, some of whom have remained leery about the long and contentious debate over the site next to the Ballona Wetlands. Developer Maguire Thomas Partners and its studio partner are still awaiting Los Angeles City Council approval of a package of about $85 million in tax breaks and reduced public improvement costs that were designed to lure the studio to the city.

“This takes one issue of uncertainty off the table,” the source said. “It helps in what is a complex project.”

Entertainment industry moguls Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen revealed their plans last year to construct the first major new studio in Los Angeles in 60 years. They predicted that it would become a world hub of high-technology film, television and CD-ROM production.

With initial co-tenants such as GTE and the Digital Domain special effects firm, the production center is expected to initially house about 4,000 workers in low-rise buildings constructed around a 7 1/2-acre, man-made lake.

But a persistent group of neighborhood and environmental activists insists that the construction will damage the local environment, killing native frogs, harming historic Native American homelands and degrading the nearby wetlands. Police have been called to the property several times, Monday included, to remove protesters from bulldozers that are beginning to grade the property.

Several larger environmental organizations--Heal the Bay, the Audubon Society and the Friends of Ballona Wetlands--have given at least tacit backing to the first phase of the Playa Vista project. A Heal the Bay scientist has described the studio site as having “little natural resource value,” since it is covered by pavement and warehouses from its days as the home of Hughes Aircraft.

But those opposed to the project said they are unbowed by the judge’s decision.

“This case is about more than this one project,” Robertson said. “This case is about who determines the impacts of developments in the community; whether it’s special interests or the citizens.”

Maguire Thomas Partners has been working for seven years to build its mini-city called Playa Vista next to the Westchester bluffs. It settled an earlier environmental lawsuit by agreeing to preserve and restore 270 acres of coastal wetlands, work that is already underway.

Besides clearing the way for the studio, Horowitz’s ruling endorses the approvals already given for 3,246 apartments, condominiums and townhouses that are part of the first phase of Playa Vista. The construction is planned for the eastern end of the property.

Future development of the balance of the project must undergo separate environmental review and construction approvals by Los Angeles.

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Roadblock Lifted

A judge on Monday cleared the way for the massive Playa Vista development near Marina del Rey.