ANGELS LANDING PROJECT UPDATES
Update September 2024: The clock is ticking for the redevelopment site known officially as Parcel Y-1. The city must decide to buy it by the end of the month, and close escrow by the end of the year. Redevelopment appears stalled, and we are calling on Councilmember Kevin de Leon to reopen the park and plaza to the public and name it Leo & Helen Politi Bunker Hill Park.
Update February 2023: In the first case file update since Jose Huizar agreed to plead guilty to racketeering, a report from the city's Chief Legislative Analyst reviews the CLA's report and recommends new language in the agreement to protect the public from unduly enriching the developer should the project fail to break ground after ten years.
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Update October 2022: After Downtown Los Angeles Councilman Kevin de Leon was caught on tape participating in a racist conversation about using corrupt redistricting maps to disenfranchise Black voters, renters and progressives, The Real Deal reports Angels Landing's developers are blaming anti-Black racism for their failure to gain project support from de Leon or disgraced City Council president Nury Martinez. Also, we learn that newly elected State Senator Sen. Sydney Kamlager quietly passed a new law (SB 1373) to bail out the shrinking, underfunded, Jose Huizar linked Angels Landing project for two extra years, controversially at the expense of making this and other surplus public land available for affordable housing development. Despite the developer's claims of Latino racism, a coauthor of the bailout bill is Latino Assemblyman Miguel Santiago.
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Update June 2022: On July 1, 2022 City Council will hear a report from the city's Chief Legislative Analyst that spells out options by which the city could purchase the Angels Knoll parcel from the CRA Successor Agency for $50,000,000 and then sell it to the developer in December 2022. The report clarifies that there have been significant management changes, and Victor MacFarlane is no longer a signatory to any deal, but only R. Donahue "Don" Peebles.
In response to the CLA's report, the developer's attorney James E. Pugh, Esq. from Sheppard, Mullin objects to the city's Repurchase Option should the developer fail to commence construction after ten years. Pugh mistakenly describes the language in "section 18(c)"as coming from "section 18(e)" and asks for concessions that would be more costly for taxpayers and more beneficial to the developer, in the event of a complete failure to develop the publicly-owned parcel.
The developer's attorney also objects to the city's prudent and reasonable refusal to agree to an unusual Transfer and Assignments clause that would allow Don Peebles to potentially hand this enormous project on public land to unknown parties who happen to do business with him.
We appreciate the CLA's office being careful with public funds and land, and continue to believe that all development projects associated with indicted former Councilmember Jose Huizar should be sent back to the drawing board for an open and impartial reconsideration. This is essential to rebuild public trust and ensure these projects are in the best interest of the taxpayers and the community. We think that Angels Knoll would be better if made into a city park instead of moving forward as a much smaller high rise development with fewer affordable units and less of so much that was promised when Jose Huizar gave the plum deal to the development team that supposedly financed his defunct nonprofit Pershing Square ReNew.
