How a Bill That Is Supposed To Boost the Downtown Stadium Could Actually Help the Subway to the Westside

(Map via Metro)

Anschutz Entertainment Group isn't the only big winner from a bill Governor Jerry Brown signed on Tuesday. The bill fast-tracks lawsuits against the proposed downtown stadium, but supporters of the slow-going subway to the Westside believe these bills could help them out, too, according to The Daily News.

The law speeds up any lawsuits filed under the state's landmark California Environmental Quality Act against projects that cost $100 million. These legal challenges have to be fast-tracked and heard in the Court of Appeals within 175 days. The deep-pocketed AEG lobbied heavily for the bill, saying that environmental lawsuits could bog down their proposed stadium project.

"It's time for big ideas and big projects like this," Brown said, as he signed the bill. He said he was backing the law because the state "has too many damn regulations." He also said the bill could spur job growth.

A law against too many lawsuits getting in the way of a big idea? This bill has local politicians salivating.

Sen. Alex Padilla, the bill's author said the proposed Purple Line subway that goes from mid-Wilshire to Westwood would easily fall within the purview of the law.

"The subway is a natural from a job-creation standpoint, from an investment standpoint, from an emission reduction and air quality standpoint," Padilla told The Daily News.

Of course, the Beverly Hills School District is not too happy about this, according to Streetsblog Los Angeles. The district has been preparing for a legal challenge against the Purple Line's environmental documents, because it is worried about a route that may run underneath Beverly Hills High School.

Undoubtedly, there are huge projects all over the state getting a second look. Padilla himself mentioned that it could help out another development in his neck of the woods: NBCUniversal expansion, a sprawling office and residential project that developer Thomas Properties has proposed for Universal City.

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By Emma G. Gallegos in News on October 6, 2011 12:40 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

miguel2299

This guy obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. The jobs these projects produce and the money they bring in not only from people around LA but by tourists from all around the world both increases tax revenue for the city and increases the Standard of living in the region by increasing cash flow through the local economy. It's basic economics...

jennix

Sometimes the only way to stop obscene ideas like the stupid effin' stadium without a team is to sue it into oblivion. Now we have to come up with another way, like maybe letting the PEOPLE vote on whether or not we want to pony up $400 million for some rich douchebag's football team to have a place to play. If they've got enough money for a football team let them find their OWN d**n money to build a stadium.

LAofAnaheim

Using your logic.......would we have Staples Center, LA Live!, or Nokia Theater? Which now produce entertainment for the whole region and people are dining at the multiple restaurants, going to the Grammy Museum, staying at the hotels. Hint: AEG got tax credits to build LA Live! I hope you don't patronize it...otherwise, that's very ironic.

jennix

That would be just fine. Building ridiculously large hotels, arenas and stadiums does NOT require our money to support multibillion dollar sporting teams and touring musical acts bankrolled by multinational recording companies. Those people can find plenty of other ways to do things, but this is easier.

Frankly, i am downtown in the Church of Money every week, enjoying the wasted electricity, masses of tarmac and concrete covered PRIVATE PROPERTY and snarled traffic. I love being told we can't be there because it's privately owned and blah blah blah. Most of all I get all warm and fuzzy feeling when freeway packing monkey-nuggets come to MY neighborhood, drive like assholes and blown their self-entitled horns at people who don't drive.

So yeah, you're right, we wouldn't have any of that stuff if we didn't pay OUR money so the wealthy can build private play spaces on OUR public property, and then exclude everyone who doesn't feel like showing up with $100 a night to blow on a ticket, a hot dog and a parking place.