THE BULGARI HOTEL THREATENS OUR SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT
The construction and operation of a commercial hotel wedged into a residential neighborhood in a high-fire severity zone unnecessarily endangers the safety of the Benedict Canyon neighborhood and its wildlife.
The risk of fire, already a major concern in Benedict Canyon and across Los Angeles would increase exponentially.
If the Bulgari Hotel is allowed to proceed, it will lead to a domino effect that will have a permanent and unmitigated environmental impact on the Santa Monica Mountains.
Here are the facts about the project:
· The developer is proposing a 59-room hotel across 19 total structures with the main building rising to 69 feet tall, parking for 260 cars, including multiple subterranean parking structures, and over a mile of cement retaining walls right in the middle of our residential neighborhood. Click here to see the exact location.
· Overall, the hotel and residential project calls for 329,610 feet of floor space.
· The project calls for at least six years of non-stop construction and the decimation of fragile hillsides. More than 100,000 yards of dirt will be moved around the property, drastically re-arranging the natural landscape.
· It will require the construction of several new two-lane roads — with access to this commercial establishment from Hutton Drive,
Wanda Park Drive and Oak Pass Road – all of which are narrow, steep and winding substandard streets.
· There will be a dramatic increase in traffic – hundreds of guests and employees per day - in a steep and small canyon area that is already a fire hazard - will make evacuation of residents almost impossible.
· Between staff, visitors, event planners, attendees, deliveries, the hillside residential community will experience truck and passenger car traffic 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
· More than 500 mature and protected trees – among them, oak, black walnut, sycamore – would be destroyed by the construction of the Bulgari Hotel.
· The habitat of the area’s diverse wildlife would be forever changed, resulting in unquantifiable damage and displacement of scores of species of animals.
· More above-ground utility lines – a major cause of wildfires in California – will be needed to power the project, providing an even great risk of fire in a heavy-brush area.
This hotel would fundamentally change the very nature of Benedict Canyon, clogging our narrow streets with traffic, filling our hills with constant noise, all the while creating precedent for other destructive commercial projects throughout all the canyons.
We will not allow the decimation of our community or the canyon for this unnecessary commercial project.