On an 8-6 vote, Los Angeles City Council backed a motion from Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky to ask the City Planning Director to reconsider a prior decision to initiate a General Plan Amendment to allow a proposed 58-room luxury Bulgari Hotel in the Santa Monica Mountains. TPR shares the Councilwoman’s statement on her reasoning behind her motion in the name of environmental protection, wildfire safety, and poor land use.
“…we do not believe it is in the City’s best interest for our Planning Department to spend hours of staff resources, hundreds of hours of staff resources and millions of taxpayer dollars on a project that goes against everything we are doing from a land use perspective, a climate perspective, and a public safety perspective.”
Katy Yaroslavsky: Thank you Council President, and thank you colleagues.
Before us is a motion I know a lot of us are already very familiar with, so I will keep my remarks short.
The last time this motion was heard, I laid out several reasons why I asked for your vote.
But I think perhaps the most important reason is that, on its face, the very idea of putting a very dense commercial luxury hotel on some of the last undeveloped land high up in the Santa Monica Mountains is a terrible land use decision.
This is not complicated.
There is a reason the City hasn’t allowed a hotel to be built in these mountains in over 100 years.
It’s because this kind of intensive land use has dangerous and environmentally devastating implications and sets a terrible precedent.
It would put local wildlife at risk by destroying habitat.
It would put the structural integrity of the hillside at risk by requiring intensive grading and bulldozing.
And most importantly, it would put human lives and property at risk due to the very real wildfire threats.
This last piece can’t be overstated.
I don’t need to remind any of you of the wildfire risk that already affects our hillsides.
I know many of you also represent hillside communities – and every summer and fall, we brace for fire season. We all understand that wildfires are becoming more frequent, and more intense with climate change.
The last thing we should be doing is putting a hotel smack in the middle of a High Fire Severity Zone.
Simply put, it is the wrong project in the wrong location and should have never got this far in the first place.
For all of these reasons, the community has been overwhelmingly opposed to this project, as have dozens of environmental groups across the City. Groups like Tree People, the Sierra Club, Citizens for Los Angeles Wildlife, and Center for Biological Diversity.
The motion before us today is simple – it asks the Director of Planning to CONSIDER reversing his prior decision to initiate the General Plan Amendment process for this project.
We as a Council do not have the authority to require him to do so, but we can ask him to consider exercising his legal discretion to do so.
And let me be clear, I am not asking for your vote lightly. I know this is a really hard vote. There have been millions and millions of dollars spent lobbying each of our offices. We’ve received calls from so many people on this project. I know each of you has as well, emails, calls for months now.
This motion is about taking a stand together as a Council, and saying that we do not believe it is in the City’s best interest for our Planning Department to spend hours of staff resources, hundreds of hours of staff resources and millions of taxpayer dollars on a project that goes against everything we are doing from a land use perspective, a climate perspective, and a public safety perspective.
Especially when the project is located in such a special place in one of our districts. We all have them – they are the gems that make Los Angeles unique, and I know everyone around this horseshoe would fight like hell to protect those places in your own districts were they threatened. That’s what this is about for me.
I hope you will join me in taking that stand and vote yes on this motion before us.
Thank you so much.
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