Hearing Record
See what the hearing did and did not resolve.
Read a factual summary of the June 11 City Planning Commission hearing, including the unresolved contradictions in the reasoning used to approve Riverwalk.
Read the Hearing Record
June 11 hearing update
The hearing exposed the problem.
The City Planning Commission moved Riverwalk forward, but the hearing record still leaves major public safety questions unresolved, including evacuation capacity, traffic review, fire safety compliance, and whether the project was reviewed as one real development or split into narrow technical pieces.
We support housing and responsible planning. We oppose unsafe scale in a constrained fire safety corridor.
Scroll for more on the oversized developmentsPhoto-based simulation of potential emergency evacuation conditions.
Safety first
Safe housing, not unsafe saturation.
Studio City for Safe Development is not anti-housing. We support safe housing and responsible planning. We oppose massive projects that add extreme density to a fire-risk corridor before the City has shown that evacuation routes, emergency access, environmental rules, and infrastructure can handle the load.
This is a public safety issue, not a resistance-to-change issue.
Cumulative corridor context
One half-mile corridor. Multiple major projects.
Riverwalk is not happening alone. The half-mile stretch from Whitsett Avenue to Coldwater Canyon Avenue is facing overlapping development pressure from Riverwalk, Sportsmen's Lodge, and Sunswept Place, with each project adding residents, traffic, construction, and commercial activity to the same constrained evacuation corridor.
- Cumulative corridor context Very High Fire Hazard context The corridor serves hillside neighborhoods and sits in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.
- Cumulative corridor context 3 Major projects Riverwalk, Sportsmen’s Lodge, and Sunswept Place, concentrated on one short stretch of Ventura Boulevard.
- Cumulative corridor context Over 1,350 New residential units Combined across the half-mile corridor, added on top of existing traffic and evacuation demand.
- Cumulative corridor context About 139,000 sq ft New commercial space Riverwalk, Sportsmen’s, and Sunswept combined, on top of the 95,000 sq ft Shops at Sportsmen’s Lodge that opened in 2021. More retail means more trips on the same evacuation corridor.
- Cumulative corridor context One constrained corridor Ventura Boulevard between Whitsett Avenue and Coldwater Canyon Avenue, a half mile carrying local, commercial, emergency, and evacuation traffic.
- Cumulative corridor context Limited river crossings North-south movement is constrained by the Los Angeles River and a small number of local crossings.
Riverwalk 814 + Sportsmen's Lodge 520 + Sunswept Place 27 = 1,361 units across 3 projects
Sportsmen's Lodge and Sunswept Place unit counts are from each developer's current proposed project description, not independently verified. Riverwalk's figures are from the public case record.
In Studio City for Safe Development's view, concentrating this much new, largely market-rate housing on a single half-mile corridor, already strained and inside a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, is a public-safety question. These are substantive planning critiques, not reflexive local resistance.
June 11, 2026 City Planning Commission approval
Riverwalk moved forward. The safety questions did not.
On June 11, 2026, the City Planning Commission approved staff recommendations for Riverwalk. The decision moved the project forward, but it did not resolve the public safety questions in the record, including evacuation capacity, traffic review, and fire safety compliance.
Read the Riverwalk caseRiverwalk only
The Riverwalk project, by itself.
These figures describe Riverwalk only. They do not include Sportsmen's Lodge, Sunswept Place, or any other nearby project.
- 814 residential units
- 75,968 square feet of commercial or restaurant use
- 1,806 parking spaces
- Up to 84 ft and seven stories
- 46 very low-income units
- ~521,000 cubic yards of dirt export
Riverwalk is not a small infill project. It is a massive mixed-use development proposed for a constrained Studio City corridor already facing fire, evacuation, traffic, environmental, and construction pressure.
Public safety first
This is about public safety.
Riverwalk sits in a corridor where fire evacuation, emergency access, traffic circulation, and cumulative development pressure are inseparable. The City should not approve a project of this scale without clear, public, record-supported safety findings.
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Fire and evacuation risk
A project this large can add residents, customers, workers, rideshare traffic, deliveries, and construction pressure to streets that already serve as emergency access and evacuation routes.
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Emergency response delay
Congested streets do not only inconvenience drivers. They affect whether police, fire, and medical responders can reach people when minutes matter.
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Cumulative corridor overload
Riverwalk is one of three major projects, alongside Sportsmen’s Lodge and Sunswept Place, concentrated on the same half mile of Ventura Boulevard between Whitsett Avenue and Coldwater Canyon Avenue. Reviewing each project on its own can miss their combined load on one constrained corridor.
On the record
Fire officials are already warning about density and response time.
We tear down small homes and we build up these large apartment buildings. We're congesting our streets with more vehicles because the people live there and they're driving.
And as much as we'd like to think that rapid transit and ways of traveling in multiple groups is going to fix things, we know that the congestion of our streets is affecting law enforcement to get to where they need to go and fire to get to where we need to go.
Chief Jaime E. Moore, Los Angeles Fire Department
That warning is exactly why Studio City for Safe Development is focused on public safety first. More units, more vehicles, more construction, and more corridor pressure must be evaluated through the lens of emergency response and evacuation, not just standard development math.
Support the next phase.
Donations are processed by the Studio City Residents Association.
Support This EffortMedia
Watch the stories behind the safety case.
See the Spectrum News report on Sunswept, fire footage from the corridor, and photo evidence from fire disasters and local site activity.
Watch Media The next phase
The legal effort is moving forward.
The group is meeting with counsel after the CPC hearing to evaluate the strongest next step. Contributions now help keep the community prepared, organized, and ready to act quickly once that step is confirmed.
Latest
Latest updates
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City Planning Commission moves Riverwalk forward
On June 11, 2026, the City Planning Commission approved staff recommendations for Riverwalk. The decision moved the project forward but left major public safety questions in the record unresolved, including evacuation capacity, traffic review, and fire safety compliance.
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Public-safety hero goes live on the campaign site
The new homepage leads with evacuation, emergency access, and neighborhood scale, the core of the case against unsafe development.
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The campaign frames Riverwalk as a public-safety issue
Studio City for Safe Development is making the case on fire evacuation, emergency response, and cumulative corridor impact, not aesthetics.
Stay ready
Stay informed. Stay ready.
Get campaign updates, hearing record analysis, and document releases from Studio City for Safe Development.
