Playa Vista Developers Answer Critics’ Arguments

Developers of the Westside’s embattled Playa Vista project fired back at critics Wednesday, presenting to a Los Angeles City Council committee a group of experts who discounted reports of explosive methane gas and earthquake faults at the site.

As city officials laid plans for a months-long probe into potential hazards at the development, project backers and consultants insisted that the development would be the safest in the city.

Speaking before the Budget and Finance Committee, experts hired by Playa Capital Co. said that a previous city-ordered environmental review was wrong when it said an earthquake fault runs beneath the site, parallel to Lincoln Boulevard.

That earlier report claimed methane gas could explode through the earth, along this fault, during an earthquake. On Wednesday, geologist Thom Davis told city officials that there was no fault and that developers were preparing to prove this with seismic mapping in late June. The survey will use sound waves to create three-dimensional pictures of the earth below Playa Vista. Davis also said that even if a fault existed, an earthquake would be highly unlikely to trigger a release of gas.

“That scenario is unprecedented,” Davis said. “Nothing even close to that has ever happened.”

Playa Vista, the largest single development project in city history, would cover more than 1,000 acres of open space between the Westchester Bluffs and Marina del Rey, including the Ballona Wetlands. It is to consist of apartments and houses for as many as 30,000 people and a vast “campus” of commercial property that developers hope will be occupied by technology and entertainment firms.

Several environmental groups and critics of Playa Vista have long called for the project’s abandonment and say the site should be preserved as open space. In recent months however, these critics have convinced city officials to take a new look at the site.

The council’s Budget and Finance Committee is investigating the allegations because it has been asked to approve release of $135 million in bond funding.

Opponents also claim that methane gas below the site might sicken residents and that a methane venting system designed by the developer won’t work.

Geological advisor Robert Sweeny, hired by Playa Vista, told the panel Wednesday that the venting system will work.

An expert on toxic chemicals, Michael Young, said less than 1% of the soil and air samples tested contained cancer-causing chemicals associated with methane gas and then at levels not exceeding government standards.