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AHF Files Suit Over Crossroads $1B Luxury Development in Hollywood
[February 20, 2019]

AHF Files Suit Over Crossroads $1B Luxury Development in Hollywood


AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) filed for a writ of mandate in Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles (case # pending per state electronic filing system) against the City of Los Angeles and the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles (CRA/LA) over violations of several laws regarding the city's fast track approval of Harridge Development Group's Crossroads $1 billion luxury development project in Hollywood.

In its application to the court seeking a writ to halt or delay the Crossroads project, AHF is asserting:
Violation(s) of California Environmental Quality Act, Community Redevelopment Law, Planning and Zoning Law and Los Angeles Municipal Code regarding the Crossroads development in Hollywood (related case # BS138580).

"As a corruption scandal roils City Hll and the FBI investigates what appears to be a business as usual, 'pay-to-play' culture involving deep-pocketed property developers and some individuals in city government, including, it appears, some City Councilmembers, we filed this legal action seeking a writ of mandate to revisit the fast track approval of the redevelopment of Crossroads of the World in Hollywood," said Michael Weinstein, president of AHF. "We believe that the city and the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles have shown deliberate indifference to the serious negative impacts and resulting gentrification that this enormous luxury project will have in Hollywood and along Sunset Boulevard. To paraphrase famed actress Gloria Swanson: we hope they're ready for their close up."



Some negative impacts of Crossroads include:

  • Dramatically increased traffic (A Caltrans report stated Crossroads will negatively affect traffic on and around the 101 Hollywood Freeway in Hollywood) and other burdens on city infrastructure, and
  • Destruction of a longstanding affordable community with the demolition of at least 84 rent-controlled apartments in Hollywood on the site of the proposed Crossroads project.
  • Destruction of irreplaceable cultural historic resources.
  • Gentrification.

The Crossroads project was approved by the City Council in a 13 to 0 vote on Tuesday, January 22, 2019 Note: both City Councilmember Curren Price (whose wife, Del Richardson (News - Alert) through her eponymous Del Richardson Associates is working on behalf of Crossroads' developer Harridge Development Group to relocate residents from the 84 rent-controlled apartments on the development site) and Councilmember Mitch O'Farrell-in whose district Crossroads is located-were notably absent from the meeting and thus did NOT cast votes on the project.


Crossroads will include 905 new apartments and condos in three high-rise buildings, 308 hotel rooms, 190,000 square feet of retail space-and has been granted 22 liquor licenses-one each for every new affordable apartment created. While at face value Crossroads appears to include 105 'new' affordable apartments, to do so it is displacing scores of long-term, low-income Hollywood tenants and demolishing 84 rent-controlled apartments)-and in fact, only creating 21 new affordable apartments in the $1 billion luxury project.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over one million individuals in 43 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook (News - Alert): www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us @aidshealthcare.


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