City is sued over plan to expand the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park - LA Daily News

The city of Los Angeles has been hit with a lawsuit over a City Council decision to green-light an expansion plan at the Los Angeles Zoo, with opponents saying the plan shouldn't proceed until potential environmental impacts are fully addressed.

The Friends of Griffith Park and the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust filed a petition in Los Angeles Superior Court this week, asking a judge to rescind the City Council's recent action.

According to group members, the council should not have certified the Environmental Impact Report associated with the project before specific plans for mitigating significant environmental impacts have been drawn up and the public is given an opportunity to properly vet them.

Officials at the L.A. Zoo, located in the city's landmark Griffith Park, want to build a new visitor center and develop a wildlife exhibit in an open space area officials are calling "Condor Canyon." Officials also want to modernize some facilities that were mostly built in the 1960s. Zoo officials have also said that the expansion would increase space for zoo animals by 162%.

But critics say the city's plan would result in the destruction of 16 acres of native vegetation filled with natural wildlife. And while the project would improve zoo animal habitats, and is in line with the zoo's mission to promote education and conservation in some respects, much of the plan is focused on creating an entertainment venue and event center, according to the petition filed in court.

Clare Darden, a trustee for the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust, said only 35% of the planned expansion is dedicated to animal-related improvements.

"What's wrong with this picture? Attempts to add human entertainment gimmicks and other misguided distractions totally negates (the zoo's) primary purpose as a top animal conservation/education center," Darden said in a statement.

"Planning to demolish additional acres of healthy natural woodland habitat for any built purpose is a travesty to the thousands of Angelenos who constantly visit, enjoy and appreciate every acre" of Griffith Park, Darden added.

Among their concerns, critics say hosting more zoo events, including in the evening when lights and human traffic might keep away wild animals that hunt at night, could impact the park's wildlife.

Zoo and city officials have indicated a willingness to scale down the size of the visitor center, and to relocate the center from the ridgeline of the Santa Monica Mountains in response to public feedback. But opponents say nothing has been spelled out in a binding document to guarantee it.

"They did say those things, but there's nothing legally enforceable," Michelle Black, an attorney for the groups suing the city, said in an interview.

The city attorney's office said it will not comment on pending litigation.

A spokesperson for City Councilmember Nithya Raman, whose district includes the zoo, said on Friday, Sept. 15, that under advice from the city attorney's office, councilmembers can't comment on active lawsuits.

Last month, the City Council voted 13-0 to move forward with a revised Los Angeles Zoo Vision Plan, known as "alternative 1.5," to be used as a roadmap for developing the zoo's facilities and operations.

During that Aug. 2 meeting, Raman spoke in support of the revised plan, saying it reflected public input, such as the elimination of a multi-story parking garage that had been considered, and left untouched an undeveloped hillside that officials proposed be removed to make way for an African exhibit.

Raman noted that Zoo Director Denise Verret, who attended the meeting, had committed to designing a smaller visitor center, moving the building off the ridgeline and preserving wildlife crossings.

The councilmember said Environmental Impact Reports (EIR) like the one the council approved during that meeting are conceptual planning documents, and the next step is to return with specific designs for the zoo project.

"I feel really confident that the concerns that are out there right now are going to be able to be addressed in the next phase as we come back with these concrete designs," Raman said during last month's meeting.

According to the lawsuit filed by Friends of Griffith Park and the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust, the approved EIR only states that substantial impacts to natural habitats will be dealt with through mitigation measures "that will be determined far in the future, and outside the view of the public, once the project reaches a 30-percent level of design."

Likewise, the lawsuit states that plans to survey the project site for sensitive species won't take place until the design of the project is 30% completed. This, the lawsuit states, "is too late."

Critics have also raised concerns about the proposed "Condor Canyon" wildlife exhibit. Initially, zoo officials proposed excavating tens of thousands of cubic yards of soil and rock to create a man-made canyon, which has received community pushback. The lawsuit noted that zoo and city officials said they would consider building a tunnel instead of a canyon if feasible.

The problem, Black, the attorney, said, is that there is nothing requiring the city to create a tunnel instead of a canyon, nor have there been specific details about what construction of a tunnel would entail.

"It seems like a tunnel would be less bad than excavating a canyon, but we have no idea because the city hasn't done (an analysis)," she said.

Moreover, Black said it's ironic that zoo officials are talking about creating an exhibit to highlight the state's biodiversity when the creation of the exhibit could have negative environmental impacts.

"We shouldn't have to destroy California habitat to show off California habitat," she said.