By ALEXANDRIA BORDAS | Reporter
Members of the Sunset-Coalition advocacy group gathered across the street from the Archer School for Girls on Wednesday, Oct. 14 to formally announce that they are suing both the City of Los Angeles and the school in an attempt to stop an approved expansion project.
The $100 million improvement plan was approved 12-0 by the LA City Council and will include a new performing arts center, gym and underground parking garage.
Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer
Despite the unanimous approval of the project, David Wright, co-chair of Sunset-Coalition, is continuing the fight against it.
“Over 1,700 citizens and a dozen local community organizations signed a petition opposing the size and impacts of Archer’s project,” Wright said at the press conference during afternoon rush hour. “Councilmember Mike Bonin knew what the community wanted, but he ignored us, and he led the fight to approve this misguided project.”
From early on in the planning stages, Bonin stated he would not support a project that makes traffic worse and in Oct. 2014 he submitted 33 compromises to Archer.
“The approved project will actually reduce Archer’s impact on Sunset traffic,” Bonin stated in an online letter on Aug. 2, 2015.
Sunset-Coalition’s main concern is the amount of traffic that will stem from the construction project.
“We’ve had to file this lawsuit because the city has violated the California Environmental Quality Act and multiple municipal codes requiring buildings to be appropriately sized,” said Environmental and Land Use attorney Douglas Carstens, who is representing Sunset-Coalition.
Carstens said he has many years of experience working on cases similar to the Archer dispute and he expects to have a 100-percent success rate.
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