HOLLYWOOD HILLS—State geologists said on July 22 that multiple earthquake faults run through the site of the Hollywood Center Development.
According to a recent letter from the California Geological Survey to Los Angeles City Planners, the studies show that there is more than one active fault strand entering the eastern Hollywood Center property. A recent U.S. Geological Survey also found the four parallel parts of the Hollywood fault; it is considered to exist under the development.
For years, state scientists stated that there’s evidence an earthquake fault slices through a strip of Hollywood. That has not stopped a New York-based developer and Los Angeles city officials’ from a $1-billion plan that would create Hollywood’s largest development.
Philip Aarons, a founder of Millennium Partners, has challenged the Los Angeles city official’s decision this week. “The data which the state believes in is significantly inferior in quality to our data which is based on large-scale trenching. We aim to assure the strongest construction against earthquakes in the history of Los Angeles, and will continue to work on resuming every data in cooperation with the city.”
Seismologist Lucy Jones believes that the California Geology Survey is an authoritative scientific institution which recognizes where in California the faults are located.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a severe and extreme shaking will happen in East Bay, North Bay, and Silicon Valley if a magnitude 7 earthquake occurs along the San Francisco Bay Area’s Hayward fault.
John Parrish, a former state geologist, says “those will go all the way through” and continue west into the Hollywood Center project parcel. “They just didn’t run up to the curb and stop. Unfortunately, they’re going to go through that piece of property.”
