THE HALF-MILE SAFETY CORRIDOR
A half-mile stretch of Ventura Boulevard, from Whitsett Avenue to Coldwater Canyon Avenue, is being asked to absorb massive new density, traffic, construction, and commercial activity in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.
We support safe housing, responsible planning, real review, and a smaller footprint. You can help!
Act before June 8.
Photo-based simulation of potential emergency evacuation conditions.
Safety first
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
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.
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.
The Riverwalk project is scheduled for City Planning Commission action on June 11, 2026. This is the immediate public decision window. Residents should submit comments, review the record, and support the legal appeal now, before approval language becomes harder and more expensive to challenge.
Read the Riverwalk caseRiverwalk only
These figures describe Riverwalk only. They do not include Sportsmen's Lodge, Sunswept Place, or any other nearby project.
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.
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.
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.
Congested streets do not only inconvenience drivers. They affect whether police, fire, and medical responders can reach people when minutes matter.
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.
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.
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Support This EffortAlternative Plan
Review the community-led vision for balanced planning, including lower density, lower height, stronger setbacks, native landscaping, river-sensitive lighting, and reduced excavation.
See the Alternative PlanMedia
See the Spectrum News report on Sunswept, fire footage from the corridor, and photo evidence from fire disasters and local site activity.
Watch MediaThe City Planning Commission decides on June 11. A specific public comment about evacuation routes, emergency access, traffic, and the scale of an 814 unit project carries far more weight than general opposition, and it becomes part of the formal record. Act before June 8.
The City Planning Commission hearing on Riverwalk at Studio City is set for June 11, 2026. There is a short window to submit public comment and support the legal appeal.
The new homepage leads with evacuation, emergency access, and neighborhood scale, the core of the case against unsafe development.
Studio City for Safe Development is making the case on fire evacuation, emergency response, and cumulative corridor impact, not aesthetics.
Get hearing alerts, public comment guidance, and document releases from Studio City for Safe Development.
