Dateline South Los Angeles – Crenshaw Subway Coalition and Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative are jointly suing the Bay Area real estate developer CP V Cumulus and the Los Angeles City Council to stop the first approved skyscraper in the history of South Los Angeles.
The project, known as Cumulus, would impose nearly 1,200 luxury housing units in a fortress-like complex that includes a 30-story, 320-foot skyscraper at the foot of Baldwin Hills and adjacent to the Expo Line La Cienega station.
Cumulus project would add a staggering 1.9 million square feet of development at the frequently gridlocked intersection of La Cienega/Jefferson, a shortcut to LAX already jammed with east-west and north-south commuters much of the day.
“The building is too damned high, and the Jefferson/La Cienega intersection already is a traffic nightmare,” said Clint Simmons, a nearby resident and member of Expo Communities United.
Crenshaw Subway Coalition and Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative are independent groups fighting for rational city planning that respects neighborhood character and ends land-use abuses.
The groups jointly filed their complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief in Los Angeles Superior Court on June 24. The lawsuit cites gross violations of the City Charter and California Environmental Quality Act by the City Councilm which unanimously approved the Cumulus project on May 25.
In approving a 30-story skyscraper in an area where no building exceeds even four stories, the Cumulus project is among the worst examples to date of the City Council’s pattern of defying all local protective zoning and height/density limits to help enrich wealthy developers — who shower the City Council with campaign funds and lobbying.
In 2014 and 2015, Carmel Partners (CP V Cumulus) of San Francisco paid $59,356 to well-connected lobbyists to influence L.A. officials. They gave a total of $4,900 to a Council member’s “officeholder account” and the campaign chests of City Council members who were key to backing the project.
National and international developers are swarming Los Angeles to cash in on the development craze currently gripping the Los Angeles Dept. of Planning and elected Los Angeles politicians. The result: A glut of luxury housing with a huge 12 percent vacancy rate, according to the city’s own data.
The Cumulus project, which will introduce more than 1,000 new unaffordable high-rise apartments, is aimed at upscale employees in nearby Culver City, while acting as a slap in the face to the surrounding South Los Angeles neighborhoods of mostly black and Latino residents.
The City Council even approved the project without any local hire requirements.
The Cumulus project is the poster child for wildly out-of-scale development. It is clearly not for existing residents. It feeds concerns like gentrification. We believe in development without displacement and responsible community planning.
The Wrong Message
This is a gross violation of both of those principles. Furthermore, the Cumulus project sends a horrible message to developers that anything goes, which threatens the right of existing residents to the neighborhoods we have built and want to see improved for us.
Beverly Grossman Palmer, the attorney representing Crenshaw Subway Coalition and Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, said, “The entitlements granted to construct the Cumulus Project fly in the face of sound planning and violate City Charter rules about when the General Plan may be amended.”
Ms. Palmer notes that “the city ignored the limitations included in the newly proposed West Adams Community Plan. They permitted construction of a 320-foot tower that far exceeds the permissible height on all neighboring properties. This is a perfect example of ‘spot zoning’ to benefit a particular developer, exactly the practice that the City Charter prohibits.”
Outrageously, the City Council approved a special “General Plan Amendment” in its efforts to help the developer get around city land-use rules on the same day that an environmental impact report was publicly released detailing the updated West Adams Community Plan.
The new Community Plan, eight years in the making, allows an increase of the building height limit on the site from 45 to 75 feet with a possible increase to 86 feet for mixed-use projects, far below Cumulus’s 320 feet.
City Hall’s decision to break zoning rules on behalf of a wealthy developer is a clear-cut message that Council members viewed residents’ years of input and engagement with city officials on the West Adams Community Plan as meaningless. Such actions have been proven to ignite a domino effect that drastically alters neighborhood character.
The Council frequently has used approval of a single illegal tower to justify more high-rise towers in areas where they are expressly prohibited by the zoning code.
Darren Starks, president of the Baldwin Neighborhood Homeowners Assn., said his group is “deeply concerned about the domino effect of the Cumulus skyscraper.
“One skyscraper is bad given the current traffic gridlock. But we see this as the start of more to come.”
Jill Stewart, campaign director for the Coalition to Preserve L.A., which is sponsoring the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative headed for the March ballot, explained why supporters of the ballot measure joined the Crenshaw Subway Coalition in suing City Hall.
“City officials are steamrolling a community of color that supports development,” she said. “But they don’t support outrageous and illegal development. It will ruin their area, jack up rental prices, price-out existing residents. It also will jam up the streets from South L.A. to the Wilshire District to Palms. “
The Cumulus skyscraper complex is far more than a “project.” It would forever change local neighborhoods in and along the Baldwin Hills, and would tower over the Ballona Creek Bicycle Path and Ballona Creek.
Yet the Cumulus proposal is practically unknown to the public, having been rushed through its approvals with little mention of it by the area’s representative, Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson.
Mr. Goodmon is the executive director of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition and may be contacted at info@crenshawsubway.org
Hi Ari,
This is Reuven Greenberg who meets you occasionally on Beverly Blvd. on our ways to shul. You indicated an interest in hearing from me about our homeless population especially in the Fairfax area. I would like to give you my ideas for helping these people. First and foremost there needs to be many more shelters to accommodate their growing numbers. To be more specific I would like to present my ideas for real help.
1. To have many half-way house shelters dotting the Fairfax area which will offer social services to begin a process of re-integrating these people back into normal society. Some do have psychiatric problems and need hospitalization until stabilized.
2. Eventual placement in dignified housing.
3. Hot, nutritious meals daily in a social setting.
4. Twelve-step or 10- step programs to help them to overcome addictions of all types.
5. Psychological counseling to manage emotional problems.
6. Medical services to manage their health needs.
7. Ancillary medical, such as dentistry to restore a healthy mouth.
8. Job training and volunteer services training and placement for a feeling of a dignified purpose in life.
9. Educational services to advance themselves for personal and community benefit.
10. Recreational therapy services to help them be part of a family with mutual respect and aid to one another.
This is an idealistic set of goals but every dream starts somewhere, even in the realm of public awareness. What do you think, Ari, could be a next step?
Reuven