Council Panel Urges Playa Vista Probe

Los Angeles city officials began the initial steps Wednesday of a probe into potential methane gas and earthquake hazards at the controversial Playa Vista development.

In response to criticism from project opponents, members of a City Council committee said they would outline the form and focus of the Westside environmental study at a meeting next week.

At a Wednesday meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee, Chairman Mike Feuer said he preferred that the city not issue any building permits until the environmental investigation is finished for what developers hope will be the city’s largest commercial and residential housing complex. The project, on 1,087 acres of open space in Playa del Rey, could one day have as many as 30,000 residents.

But Feuer took no formal action on his statement. “The whole point of this analysis is to make sure things are safe there,” Feuer said.

The launching of the study was viewed as a victory of sorts by project opponents, who say the project should be abandoned and that its site, in and around the Ballona Wetlands, between Marina del Rey and the Westchester bluffs, should be preserved as open space.

Developers insist that the site is safe and have offered their own proposal for examining the complaints.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the developer said the investigation should be combined with another, ongoing environmental review of a temporary storm water runoff system plan for the site.

“At the end of the day, everybody’s desire is to have a safe project,” said David Herbst, a vice president for Playa Capital Co.

Herbst said that combined review would probably take two or three months and would ultimately vindicate the project. Opponents are resisting combining the runoff study with that of seismic and gas issues and say the entire inquiry should take more than six months.

Also on Wednesday, the council committee asked the city attorney’s office to examine the city’s potential liability on the proposed issuance of $135 million in key Mello-Roos bond funding for the project. That funding, which would pay for the construction of roads and a storm water runoff system, has already been approved, but the City Council must vote for its release.

Mello-Roos bonds are repaid by tax assessments on residents and commercial tenants in a development. Overall, Playa Vista’s developers have requested $428 million in public financing for the project.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Feuer suggested that another committee may ultimately receive the environmental report, as issues of earthquakes and natural gas were not items his committee usually examines.

“We’re fast becoming the planning and environmental quality committee,” Feuer joked. The complaints of environmentalists follow the recent release of a previous city-ordered report on methane gas at the site. While officials at the city Department of Building and Safety insist that the report concludes the project is safe--provided that the developer installs a network of gas vents and alarms--critics contend that the city is ignoring a potential disaster.

That earlier report also discussed an earthquake fault beneath Lincoln Boulevard. It speculated that a quake could trigger the release of methane gas, but the developer disputed that contention.