Attorney Robert Silverstein's 8/26 Objection Letter &The Mysterious "Alternative 8"

 

As you know, the City held a telephonic-only public hearing on August 26, 2020 to hear testimony and consider the Vesting Tentative Tract Map Application and Final EIR (that has not yet been released to the public).    Offering a final opportunity for City Planning to do the right thing, our attorney Robert Silverstein sent in this objection letter prior to the hearing.

As Silverstein points out, the City sent a hearing notice split into 2 sections.  It listed consideration of not only (1) the Project as represented to the public in the Draft EIR, but also (2) a single alternative version of the Project, Alternative No. 8, that is different than the Project that has always been held in front of the public’s eyes by the City and developer.

The public has been looking at the Draft EIR and project as a whole (as best as anyone can review nearly 13,000 pages of technical information in 45 days during a pandemic and riots). Suddenly, we get a hearing notice on Aug. 21 telling us we have 5 days to look into Alternative 8 because the notice has its own little section about it.

The developer’s presentation was made available a day prior to the hearing, and we can see that half of it discusses Alternative 8.  This is a very different project than what was advertised to the public.     Let’s take a look at what Millennium claims here:

HOW MANY TIMES IS “ALTERNATIVE 8” MENTIONED IN MILLENNIUM’S HOLLYWOOD CENTER PROJECT DESCRIPTION

ZERO!

 

Yet it’s suddenly the focus of the presentation made at the 8/26 public hearing.

And here’s a pretty important fact that the City and Millennium did not tell us about how this swap to Alternative 8 would affect the so-called “affordable senior housing” (which itself is largely a myth). Under new Alternative 8, all of the senior units from the original project will get dramatically shrunk, and all of the 2-bedroom units from the original project will be axed. Whereas in the original project the senior units ranged from 840 – 1435 square feet in size, Alternative 8 has them all at 612 square feet. The average unit size under the project sold to the public was 932 square feet. In other words, the average project unit size was 52% larger than the inferior junk of Alternative 8.

This is more bait and switch by the developer and City Planning. Please send in comments to the City now protesting this fraud on the public.

The City has taken every opportunity to show deference to Millennium Partners, no matter the harm to the public, and showing us all who they really work for. The City keeps moving the pieces of this shell game which leaves us guessing and constantly prejudiced.

They are violating our legal rights and risking our health and safety.

We encourage our readers to take a look at Robert Silverstein’s 8/26 objection letter and to keep sending in your comments.

 

We and our legal team are doing our best to stay on top of the unlawful and deceitful acts the City and Millennium are trying to sneak past us.  Your contributions help to keep us going.   We thank you in advance.

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