Council to vote on lifting Hollywood height limits

A controversial mixed-use project slated for the corner of Sunset Blvd and Gower St is asking for an exemption from the area's 45 ft height limit. The project's developers, AREA Property Partners, have plans for a 28-story residential tower and a 17-story office tower on the site of the old CBS studios. Having already received approval from the city planning commission, the project expects to get the greenlight from city council, including council president Eric Garcetti, who happens to represents the area in question.

But the permitting of this project has consequences beyond just an isolated zoning exemption - it will change the height limits for the entire surrounding neighborhood - a historically low-lying area on Hollywood's fringes. And this is what has sparked some very vocal opposition to the tower. Local residents are mainly concerned about large buildings casting shadows over their homes and yards, but many are worried about the potential Manhattanization of a once-laidback part of town. Robert Silverstein, a local land use lawyer often involved with historic preservation said the city was "willingly [permitting] the destruction of its own past." Zoning, he says, should concentrate development in certain areas while leaving others small-scale.

And what does the developer have to say to that? AREA associate Brian Earle says it is part of the "city's desire to have more density...instead of going out we are going up." While it may sound like a developer jumping on the trendy 'denser is better' bandwagon, he has a point. Sunset and Gower is in an underdeveloped stretch of land just outside the confine's of boomy central Hollywood. If a developer thinks he can make something better out of a stretch of low-density strip malls and dingbat apartments, all the power to him. Besides, it takes a lot more to pencil a project than it used to. Hollywood has arguably become the most dense, walkable neighborhood outside of Downtown. That some locals are still enamored by the drugged-up, run-down Hollywood of old remains a mystery.