It’s official: The City of Los Angeles has killed the entitlement process for the Bulgari Hotel, the luxury development in Benedict Canyon that has garnered celebrity support on both sides of the development battle.
The latest blow to the project came on Wednesday, when L.A. Planning Director Vince Bertoni sent a letter to Gary Safady, the project developer, declaring that the project “would be inappropriate” at the choice hillside site.
“This is a monumental win for our mountains, and sends a clear message that our hillsides are worth defending,” L.A. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who leads the political opposition against the project, said in a statement. “The City of Los Angeles hasn’t allowed a new hotel in these mountains in nearly 100 years, and thanks to hundreds of community and environmental leaders, it won’t anytime soon.”
Mike Gatto, a former California Assembly member who now represents Safady as a personal attorney, shot back hard, arguing that a vote held by the City Council last month that directed Bertoni to freeze the approvals process was “legally unprecedented.”
Safady is now considering suing, local media reported.
“The action by the city sends a message to anyone looking to invest in Los Angeles that the city can’t be trusted to follow its own rules,” Gatto added. “This action has undermined the city’s credibility and ironically taken away hundreds of jobs from the people who need them.”
Bertoni’s letter came three weeks after the L.A. City Council voted to request that the planning director rescind an entitlement process that began nearly six years ago, when the department first began considering project approvals. (The luxury hotel and residential compound would need a zoning amendment because the area does not allow commercial projects.)
Much of the opposition to the build stems from environmental worries — especially over the project’s potential to increase wildfire risk — but earlier this summer Yaroslavsky also raised a red flag over ethics and conflict of interest concerns related to the project team’s prodigious lobbying efforts, which included the hiring of the spouse of a former district planning deputy.
“I’m a former land use attorney, and this project does not pass the smell test,” Yaroslavsky said during a passionate May council meeting. “I do not ask for this vote lightly, but I strongly believe it is necessary to protect the integrity of our planning process.”
Safady, the city planning department and the former district staffer at the center of the controversy have denied or downplayed the ethics allegations.
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