First it should say if a builder wants to build something in L.A. --nO SUCH THING AS IF A DEVELOPER WANTS TO BUILDING SOMETHING--GEEZ
NO-NO-NO- TAX PAYERS $$$$ SPENT--kICK OUT ALL ILLEGALS AND USE THAT $$$$ TO REPAIR THIS STATE AND THEN LET DEVELOPERS PAY THEIR SELF......

That wole systm is totally corrupt and needs to be dumped and started over again it lost its use when everybody could meddle in it. Beate

There seems no logical reason for it, since apparently the studies come out the same, but groups like Barbara Broide's on the Westside complain about and criticize everything, causing the city a huge amount of headache and money anyway in terms of lawsuits and appeals the city has to pay attorneys and councilperson staff time and money for. There are groups who are never happy with anything anyway.

Would Broide's group object to that building going up anyway, no matter who did the study? Probably. They are using EIR's as a means to try to prevent all development, giving our city a reputation as being extremely unfriendly to all development.

Certainly neighbors should have a voice in developments impacting them but many Homeowner Associations are just entitities that try to block every project no matter what. In this case, the buildings her group is protesting do indeed have less traffic than what is proposed, but that's because it's currently totally dead, and unused: the former Shubert live theatre, a three-screen cinema, a bank and deli, a nightclub used only for private parties, are all dead as a doornail and either bankrupt or headed there. The configuation just didn't work for L A.

The highrise project is one of the models not only for the city but the country, combining living/ working/ retail space in a beautiful architectural creation. It is this sort of multi-use concept that makes the EIR come out as less car trips than if all people came from somewhere else instead of some locals using the bus or walking from Century Woods, or living there. So Broide's group comparing a dead and therefore bankrupt building to this new concept is absurd in terms of counting car trips, and in terms of what L A needs.

Maybe they'd rather have this dormant financial ruin next door precisely because no one uses it and therefore it generates no car trips, but that is both misleading as a way to compare traffic and bad for the city.

Coming after the bad rep our city has gotten after blocking Home Depot in Sunland-Tujunga, forcing them to redo their EIR's as a stalling tactic when it's clear the community just doesn't want that project, the pattern is clear.

Now, the Mayor is running around trying to get out the message that development is actually sought in many communities, because this kind of NIMBYism, using EIR's as an excuse to prevent all future development, has meant the city is, he says, way behind surrounding cities and comparable cities across the country in terms of raising sales and hotel taxes.

It's not fair that some politicians like Weiss have to take the brunt of anger from some groups who are really objecting to city wide policies. (Wendy Greuel apparently bowed to that sort of pressure with Home Depot, creating an image that we have a city where one hand doesn't know what the other is doing and has to try to counter that left hand.) Consistency or the perception of it, seems more the real issue.

If making the city do EIR's and getting the developer to pay them back helps solve this, the city might save money and its reputation as flaky in the long run. And then I don't see how it is actually costing the city more, if it saves on lawsuits and the developers pay it back.

The government's responsibility is protecting the taxpayers and citizens. They should review and approve any study done by the developers, which indirectly means the govt. must have the expertise and resources to at least assess any studies, if not conduct parallel studies that either confirm or contradict what the developer says.

There has been almost no thought to infrastructure since the 70's, when the last great freeways were built with little thought to mass transit. In fact, politicians of that time like Zev Yaroslavsky and Waxman actively prohibited digging for subways or paying for raillines, while letting the developments go on ahead in a boom economy.

Now there are big projects being built for the first time since the early 90's, and infrastructure and push for funds from local, state and federal sources is playing catch-up.

Meanwhile the housing downturn means there are very few construction jobs out there, except for these big projects. City sales tax revenues are way down, and even upscale cities like Beverly Hills have almost seven times as much sales tax per capita as L A.

At the same time, homeowner groups are madder than ever about development of any kind, using lack of enough roads and mass transit as one excuse, and using EIR's as a way to block projects. But if we wait for all mass transit to be completed before anything is developed or redeveloped, that is just nonsensical.

We are going through growth pains making up for lack of planning and spending on the mass transit and road improvements that should have been done decades ago.
Sure, let the developers reimburse third parties for EIR's if that makes people feel more confident. And let's make sure they compute traffic estimates in terms relevant to L A, not a national model equally applicable to Des Moine, Iowa OR New York City.