Council OKs Century City Project Despite Feuer’s Opposition

When some people think of Century City, they think of high-rises. City Councilman Mike Feuer thinks of traffic.

So much traffic, in fact, that Feuer, whose district includes the small urban island of Century City, attempted to stop a developer Wednesday from building a $250-million, 38-story skyscraper there until more traffic surveys could be conducted.

That was despite the developer’s appeasement of several major concerns of homeowners groups, the firm’s offer to spend $6.4 million on a new traffic control system and the fact that the project meets the city’s approved plan for the area.

All that is in stark contrast to another massive project proposed in Feuer’s district: the Westwood Village plan. There, the councilman is supporting the developer who needs about two dozen--albeit mostly small--changes to the council-adopted Westwood specific plan. Homeowners groups are furious at the prospect. And the traffic? It wouldn’t be nearly as bad as Century City’s.

Although the council won’t address the Westwood project until at least late this summer, Feuer lost his two-year fight against the Constellation Place project in Century City on Wednesday.

It was tough: The developers, JMB Realty Corp. of Chicago, hired a virtual army of lobbyists, lawyers, public relations firms and traffic experts. Homeowners hired their own attorneys. Council members were inundated with documents, petitions and requests for meetings. The council chamber was packed with custodians, carpenters and maintenance workers who see jobs in their future, along with well-heeled homeowners and high-priced lobbyists.

In the end, the council was split, 6-6, on whether to approve the project or seek a six-month delay until a new computerized traffic system could be tested. The council voted again, this time approving the project on a 9-3 vote, with council members Feuer, Jackie Goldberg and Cindy Miscikowski dissenting.

At several turns, the issue became so complicated with the various amendments and questions over how many votes were actually needed that two city attorneys were summoned to explain.

“I believe it’s very bad policy not to know basic facts with potentially huge consequences before approving a major project,” said Feuer, who along with his staff invested a large amount of time in the project, attending seven-hour hearings in the months before Wednesday’s vote. “I do believe this is a public safety issue, having been to New York and seen the gridlock and the trouble emergency vehicles have.”

The developers, however, have pinned their hopes on a computerized traffic system that uses street-level monitors and adjusts the timing of signals to accommodate traffic. They were jubilant after the council session, which dragged on for an unusually long time.

“This will send a strong message that Los Angeles is back,” said Stuart Natham, JMB’s executive vice president. “This is a very positive step for Los Angeles, for Century City and for the coalition of labor and business.”

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Developers and their representatives played up the computerized traffic system, highly touted by the city’s transportation department, which developed it and is testing it in several parts of the city. (Council aides also speculated cynically that transportation department general manager Tom Connor needs to show that the plan is in place to meet his department goals that partly affect his evaluation and merit pay.)

An environmental impact report on the project, located across the street from the Century City Shopping Center, found that 37 intersections would be unacceptably congested by traffic in the area. (The Westwood Village plan has seven such intersections.)

Under the plan approved by lawmakers, a test of the traffic system will be conducted for neighbors. A so-called neighborhood protection plan will be developed based on that data that could lead to speed bumps and other traffic measures to ease congestion on the adjacent residential streets.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, whose district borders Feuer’s, succeeded in an eleventh-hour attempt at getting developers to spend an additional $500,000--bringing the total to $1 million--for that neighborhood plan.

Under the proposal adopted Wednesday, the developers will pay for the system to be installed to aid 73 intersections all over the Westside.

But Feuer and his staff do not believe that the computerized traffic system has been adequately tested nor are they convinced by the data provided to them. Feuer’s office doubted the credibility of that data so much, in fact, that it filed a Public Records Act request for more documentation.

“We have sat down with [Department of Transportation] not for minutes, for days to figure out if it can work,” Feuer told the council. “They don’t know. There are lots of unknowns.”

The biggest unknown to some political consultants and lobbyists who support the Century City project is why the councilman is so adamant in his opposition to the Century City high-rise and so supportive of the Westwood project.

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“It’s very confusing to figure out how Mr. Feuer can justify one project [Westwood Village] and attack the other,” said Rick Taylor, a political consultant representing the developer. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Feuer says the two projects are “apples and oranges.”

“If there were 37 [congested] intersections in Westwood, there would be no way I would be supporting it,” he said.

The Century City project has received wide support from unions and Mayor Richard Riordan’s office.

“Denying or delaying a project . . . with no subsidies--and I repeat no subsidies--sends a wrong message that L.A. is not committed to bringing quality jobs to the city, L.A. is not business-friendly,” said Deputy Mayor Rocky Delgadillo, who oversees economic development.

Unions held a rally earlier in the day calling on the council to support the project.

“We understand Councilman Feuer’s concerns--he has a constituency there who have opposed it,” said Richard Slawson, executive secretary of the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council. “But there are still some who will never be appeased.”