City Council OKs New Rules To Allow Construction To Resume On Hollywood Target Store
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Construction could soon resume on a Target store in East Hollywood that has stood half-built for more than a year due to legal challenges after new planning rules were approved Wednesday.
The Los Angeles City Council moved to amend planning guidelines aimed at allowing Target to "take steps to resume construction for this important project", spokesman Erika Winkels said.
Work was halted in Aug. 2014 at the site at Sunset Boulevard and Western Avenue by a judge who sided with the La Mirada Avenue Neighborhood Association and other project opponents.
The unfinished skeleton of the building has been criticized as an eyesore following its initial City Council approval in 2012.
Opponents such as Citizen Coalition Los Angeles, one of the groups that successfully stopped the project, and another group, Hollywoodians Encouraging Logical Planning (HELP), plan to file a lawsuit challenging the newly approved rules, according to attorney Richard MacNaughton.
The changes should have undergone environmental review, which did not happen, MacNaughton contends.
"The law requires an environmental impact study when they make a major change in a specific plan and they didn't do one, and I have no idea why they didn't do one," he said.
But opponents say they're open to a project that follows the previous planning rules that limits its height to 35 feet. The half-constructed building is about about 75 feet tall.
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