Despite unanimous approval from the Los Angeles City Council, you won’t see any crane action on Sunset Boulevard and Western Avenue, where a Target development has been stalled for eight years by a heated development battle.
A Superior Court judge ordered the construction of a Target store to be halted in August 2014, ruling that the city allowed more height than what was permissible by zoning laws, but the council overturned that decision in May of this year. Construction was expected to move forward within weeks, but three months later, there are crickets in Hollywood.
Target now needs Superior Court permission to start construction, the Los Angeles Times reported. The court will have to decide whether it will uphold or change its original ruling now that the site has been rezoned.
Meanwhile, the La Mirada Avenue Neighborhood Association of Hollywood, which has been trying to eradicate the project for eight years, has not given up.
Robert P. Silverstein, the attorney representing the association, filed a new lawsuit in June challenging site’s new zoning. Silverstein has led many battles against developments in Los Angeles, and is a consultant for the development-curbing Neighborhood Integrity Initiative campaign, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. Target’s lawyer, Richard Schulman, said he was “very confident” the zoning would be upheld by a judge, but acknowledged the new case could take three more years in court.
Target wants to finish the building in the meantime, and is willing to take the risk because it believes the La Mirada lawsuit is “meritless,” according to a legal filing submitted by Schulman in July. [LAT] — Hannah Miet