Should downtown L.A. stadium plan be exempt from environmental review?

Environmentalists are vowing to stop any effort by developers to exempt a proposed football stadium in downtown Los Angeles from environmental laws.

The state Legislature last year granted a waiver to a football stadium proposed by developer Ed Roski Jr. in the City of Industry.

No such waiver has been proposed for the potential downtown stadium site, but that has not stopped some environmentalists.

The nonprofit Planning and Conservation League has begun circulating a letter asking people to sign up to oppose any future legislation that might grant the Anschutz Entertainment Group an exemption from the state’s environmental laws for a potential stadium site near the Los Angeles Convention Center. The letter, supported by groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, says such action would set a bad precedent and is not necessary.

Read more from Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy at the PolitiCal blog. Curbed L.A. also has been covering the issue.

What do you think? Share your views below.

-- Patrick McGreevy

Photo: The L.A. Live complex in downtown Los Angeles, which is adjacent to a potential site for a football stadium. Credit: Los Angeles Times file photo

Comments

[jaded]

Exempt??! NO!!!

Why should another politically connected millionaire with another NFL pipe dream get an environmental pass on building a stadium anywhere?

It's disgusting how quickly politicians will dispatch rules and laws the second they smell money. Sure, mow down those last few hills, destroy a wildlife corridor, build another useless football shrine--boys, there's big FEES to collect!

And the 57/60 interchange where this stadium would be built is already one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the region. No wonder everybody is fleeing this pathetic excuse for a state.

[cynthiagrace]

Didn't we have this debate in the early 60s with regard to Dodger stadium?

[SaMo]

What kind oflunacy is this? Just because we're broke, we should stop doing our job? Would anybody suggest that the stadium should be exempt from police protection? That it not be required to have public toilets? That it be allowed to discriminate against women or blacks or Hispanics?

Environmental reviews cost money and time because they're worth it. They tell us BEFORE we do something stupid. Like put a football stadium in a place where there's no public transportation.

[CaliPHOBE]

EVERYTHING should be exempt from "environmental review".

[Jessica]

Hell no. Every major project in California has to be subject to environmental review, why should a football stadium in downtown be any different?

[TAM]

NO, and because it will only be because they have money. AEG would be buying city government more, and the tax payers would end up paying. AEG has already bought the Pint Size Mayor too much.

[Jennix]

Football stadiums are in short supply around here. We only have a couple or three major universities inside the city limits, and they don't play football, right? We couldn't have possibly had a football team here from 1946 to 1979, where would they have played? And nevermind that we don't even HAVE a damn team, everybody knows that you have to build a football stadium to attract football teams.

The most logical idea of course is to build a make-believe stadium for the team we don't have. If that's the plan, then yes, we can skip the EIR. Otherwise, they have to follow ALL the rules.

Also, FWIW, I'd like to echo clearly what SaMo said: PUBLIC RAIL ACCESS. If they build the stadium way the heck out in whereverland, we'll all be coughing up big money just to get TO the game, tickets and hotdogs go on top of that.

[Fed Up]

Sure, how much more can Sacramento politicians milk donations out of these wannabe team owners

[kuruc]

excempt them ONLY if they build it on top of city hall.

[Wayne]

Skip the EIR environmental laws again like they did for City of Industry. LA needs the jobs more. That is how they got around the EIR for City of Industry. The CA State Legislature will be bought again....Old man from Walnut.