AEG Calls Carson Project ‘Flawed’

Ted Fikre, the company’s vice chairman and chief legal and development officer, on March 16 fired off a letter to Carson, Calif., Mayor Jim Dear, and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, warning him that the NFL stadium project announced jointly by the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers is  soccer stadium in Carson, a mere two miles from the proposed football stadium site, which would clearly acquire competition if the Raiders and Chargers go through with their plans to build a stadium in the city.

Fikre threw an aside at the city of Inglewood, which now appears to be the front-runner in the L.A. stadium derby, by saying Carson appears by trying to “avoid a public process altogether, as was the case in Inglewood.” He cited AEG’s good works with the community in development of Staples Center, L.A. Live and the now-defunct stadium project in a preface to picking apart Carson’s plan to put the proposal before voters as a ballot initiative without first getting an environmental impact report or putting the plan through any public review process.

“It would be one thing if the impacts on StubHub Center, Carson and surrounding neighborhoods in general were to be fully analyzed in an EIR where the analyses and conclusions would be subject to public review and scrutiny,” the letter says. “But it is entirely unacceptable for a massive development project such as this one, with a fifty-year life span, to short cut the environmental and public review process entirely by use of the proposed initiative.”

The six-page letter details impacts on traffic, parking, public services, development standards, and environment issues including air and water quality, hazardous materials and geology that AEG urges the city to consider publicly.

“We have a very substantial investment in Carson which will be placed at risk if a loophole is exploited to avoid and evade the protections described above,” the letter says. “Just because the Council has the right to bypass the people, it doesn’t make it right to take that huge short cut.”