2 Groups Challenge Environmental Report

Two groups concerned about massive growth in Los Angeles are challenging the environmental report for the city’s General Plan Framework, which serves as a blueprint for future development.

The plan was adopted by the City Council in 1996. The city then approved an environmental-impact report in support of the plan.

In July, a Superior Court judge ruled that the city should have taken public comments on a related document that explained the traffic portions of the plan, which projects a population increase of 820,000 people by 2010.

While pleased with that decision, the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., a regional homeowners organization, and the activist group Coalition Against the Pipeline, want the court to go further and force the city to redo its entire environmental-impact report on the plan.

Their appeal “contests the city’s claim that its plan for limiting the impacts of massive growth are feasible,” said Lawrence Teeter, the attorney representing both groups. He said the environmental-impact report did not consider a broad enough range of alternatives.