AIDS Healthcare Foundation sues LA over Crossroads of the World redevelopment

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is suing the city of Los Angeles in an attempt to stall or stop the $1 billion Crossroads of the World redevelopment in Hollywood.

AHF announced Wednesday that it, along with another group called Livable LA, is taking legal action against the city over alleged “violations of several laws regarding the city’s fast track approval” of the Sunset Boulevard project. The project was approved last month by the City Council.

AHF and Livable LA claim city officials violated the California Environmental Quality act when they signed off on the project, arguing that the Crossroads development’s effects on traffic, air quality, and the neighborhood’s affordable housing stock were inadequately analyzed.

The Crossroads project would build 950 new apartments and condos, a 308-room hotel, and 190,000 square feet of commercial space in towers rising 26, 30, and 32 stories high. To do that, it will need to raze buildings containing 82 rent-stabilized units.

AHF and Livable LA argue that an alternative version of the project that would have allowed these buildings to remain was not fully considered.

“We believe that the city... [has] shown deliberate indifference to the serious negative impacts and resulting gentrification that this enormous luxury project will have in Hollywood and along Sunset Boulevard,” AHF president Michael Weinstein said in a statement.

Developers for the Crossroads project are confident the project will move forward, despite the lawsuit, said project representative Kyndra Casper, “given its status as a California Environmental Leadership Development Project.”

The state designation helps CEQA lawsuits against these projects get speedier legal review.

“As we are confident that we will prevail on the merits, we will continue working with the community in bringing Hollywood this exciting and transformational project,” Casper said.

• Hollywood’s Crossroads of the World project approved by City Council [Curbed LA]
• Crossroads of the World redevelopment will knock down 82 rent-controlled apartments [Curbed LA]