Neighbors are concerned about the proposed Casden West L.A. project and what impact it might have on their community.
The mixed use project, which would consist of 638 residential apartments and 160,000 square feet of retail space, would be built at the intersection of Exposition and Sepulveda Boulevards, situated along the corridor of the Expo Line coming from Culver City. It is being built by billionaire developer Alan Casden.
"The Expo/Sepulveda Station offers a unique opportunity to create transit-oriented development that will complement this important new transit infrastructure and promote mass transit use" referring to the site’s proximity to the new light rail station at Exposition and Sepulveda Boulevards, according to the developer’s Casden Property Company’s website.
However, the Mar Vista Community Council has concerns about the project.
"It will impact all of Mar Vista traffic wise," said Sharon Commins, president of the Mar Vista Community Council.
The council has requested a more thorough traffic study and mitigation plan than was first presented in the project's environmental impact report. The council also recommends the plans include a parking structure, a park, "a downsized physical presence with step backs and set backs" adjacent to neighboring properties and "no residential component," among other concerns.
Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl expressed his concerns about the project in a recent letter to Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and to Michael LoGrande, the Director of the Los Angeles Department of City Planning. Rosendahl stated that if the project is "has the potential to cause serious traffic and quality of life impacts on the Westside neighborhoods that I represent."
Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz has also spoken out against the proposed development, stating in a letter to LoGrande and Trutanich that "with a project of this scope and scale, we must examine every aspect of the development to insure that all possible impacts are addressed, and the full potential of the City’s investment in the Expo Line are realized."
Trutanich, himself, wrote a letter last week to the chair of the Planning and Land Use Management Committee requesting the project be returned to the City Planning Department for review. Steve Wallace, president of the South Mar Vista Neighborhood Association, said many residents who live in both Councilmen Rosendahl’s and Koretz’s districts "do not want this monster project to go ahead.”
The project is currently scheduled to go before the City Council's Planning and Land Use Committee on May 28 and before the full City Council on June 12.
No one from Alan Casden’s office returned calls by press time.
For more information, visit its website online.
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