The developer of the Sunset La Cienega project is seeking authorization to remove parking spaces on the north side of Sunset Boulevard between Alta Loma and La Cienega for 11 months.
The 12 parking spaces would be removed to allow the developer to shift the current five lanes, which include one turn lane, 10 feet north into the space now set aside for parking.
In a memo to the City Council, the city’s Department of Public Works says that would allow closure of the parking area and part of the southernmost traffic lane to create a buffer zone between traffic on Sunset Boulevard and the cranes and other construction equipment that will be used to dig 60 feet beneath the surface of the property to construct a parking garage. The proposed alteration in traffic and parking is on Monday night’s City Council agenda.
Sunset La Cienega, formerly known as Sunset Millenium, is a massive development by the CIM Group that includes a parcel east of La Cienega that will have two 10-story towers with 296 hotel rooms and 15,000 square feet of retail space. The parcel between La Cienega and Alta Loma will have two eight-story towers with 190 residential units and 55,000 square feet of retail. Both parcels will feature large public plazas with viewing terraces.
Elyse Eisenberg, chair of the West Hollywood Heights Neighborhood Association, has asked members of the City Council to remove the proposed traffic alteration from its consent calendar on which items are placed that are automatically approved by the Council without comment from the public.
“The construction phase of the project was not supposed to have additional impacts to the traffic flow,” Eisenberg said in an email message to Council members and members of the neighborhood association. “This was part of the project’s entitlement approval. That is now changing, along with other changes that have been approved without public input – such as eliminating 350 of the 435 public parking spaces and the tunnel under La Cienega linking the two sites that this project was supposed to include.
“It goes without saying this project is already impacting Sunset traffic on a daily basis and that’s just a few construction trucks. These four towers will have about 500 hotel rooms and condos, plus retail and restaurant space when complete.”
Eisenberg also noted the fire at a condominium building on Horn Avenue just north of Sunset Boulevard last Thursday. “The emergency responders told us it was difficult to get to our building and many of the fire trucks were parked up and down our street as well as along Sunset which was closed in both directions for hours,” she said in her email message. “Very likely many of you were impacted by this.
“What would happen if there was nowhere for cars to pull over to allow emergency responders to get to a residence – single or multi-family – because of all the increased congestion?”
The Council will meet at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the City Council Chambers at 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. south of Santa Monica.
The city manager. A joke. He lives in Pasadena. A civil servant and should be earning what Garcetti recommends for the entire Southern California area – a new minimum wage. WEHO is now one of the most corrupt cities in the USA.
Is everything for sale because the city manager compensation is so out of wack for a city of 35k residents with no city police, fire, public transportation, or airport to manage? Police and fire are contracted with the county. In 2011, the Sacramento Bee and WeHoville reported his compensation was $406,934. Three years later you bet that number has increased.
If you think this project is big wait until you hear about the other mega high rise projects pending approval by the City Council. West Hollywood is about to turn into Century City. Tonight they’ll approve the enormous 8899 Beverly Blvd project even though the neighborhood doesn’t want it and the zoning plan doesn’t allow for it. Next will be the mega shopping center, office and retail complex next to the PDC at San Vicente and Santa Monica Blvd. More traffic, more hurt pedestrians and more un-rented retail stores. Sounds like great planning to me!
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Not only is this a disaster for residents, visitors and first responders 911 calls but what about all the other clubs, stores, restaurants, businesses that are east and west of this project? These businesses will suffer first hand financially having a lane on Sunset Blvd. cut off and closed for over a year. Just say NO to this bad idea!
CIM “value engineered” the s#!! out of the Sunset Gordon project to the point that it looks like a soviet style apartment building. Looks like they are on the path to do the same thing here.
This will be a nightmare. Why do we need yet another retail/luxury apt/hotel eye sore?? They cant even fill the new ones they have built.
Anyone who cares anything about West Hollywood must do everything we can to make sure that NONE of the current Councilmembers up for re-election in March get reelected.
West Hollywood must return to the residents, not the developers.
I used to live above this future nightmare on Miller Drive, I am so happy I sold that lovely house. No more views. Unbearable traffic nightmares, You suck West Hollywood.
Is EVERYTHING in our city for sale? How come the plans ALWAYS change when it comes to this city council that is RAMPANT in its ability to be bought and sold, bribed and coddled both in plain sight and under the table by the deep pocketed developers and lobbyists like that horrific slime Steven Afreat. This is exactly what they did with Restoration Hardware: got one thing approved and then changed the plans. Nobody says F U like Dumico, Land (for sale), Duran, Heilmann and (vote for) Prang (and donate lots of cash to my campaign).
Presumably this temporary action will help speed up construction.
This is a terrible idea and inconvenience for everyone who lives in or drives through West Hollywood. I have first-hand experience with what happens when Sunset is negatively impacted. The fire on Horn a few days ago closed Sunset in both directions. I live on Cynthia St and it was bumper to bumper with angry drivers honking for hours. And this weekend, the Sunset Music Festival snarled traffic south of Sunset and made Cynthia into the de facto Sunset alternative for the entire time. More bumper-to-bumper traffic, honking and angry drivers. Traffic on Santa Monica was only slightly better. Sunset… Read more »
Wait…the city council approved without public consent the elimination of 350 parking spaces for this huge development? How did they get away with that? And a tunnel under La Cienega between the two complexes is a great, useful and SAFE idea so you don’t have people crossing at this soon to be enormous cityscape intersection. Seriously baffling. And then the traffic alteration (which wasn’t part of their plan) is now being altered? No wonder developers flock to West Hollywood. They know the can get a project approved and then alter it with a little hush money.