environmental impact report

Frank McCourt will have to pursue his proposed Dodger Stadium gondola without legislation that would have limited potential legal challenges to the project.

After The Times reported on the legislation, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council publicly opposed it, asking a state Assembly committee to strip the language that would have benefited the gondola project or kill the bill entirely.

On Friday, the committee stripped the language and moved ahead with the remainder of the bill, which is designed to expedite transit projects in California. Under the now-removed language, future legal challenges to certain Los Angeles transit projects would have been limited to 12 months.

The language of the bill did not cite any specific project, but a staff report called the gondola proposal “one project that would benefit.”

A court fight over Metro’s approval of the environmental impact report for the project is at 17 months and counting.

In a letter to state legislators in which she shared the council resolution opposing the language in question, City Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez said the language would amount to “carve outs” from a worthy bill in order to ease challenges to “a billionaire’s private project.”

McCourt, the former Dodgers owner, first proposed a gondola from Union Station to Dodger Stadium in 2018. The project requires approvals from four public agencies, including the City Council, which is expected to consider the gondola after the completion of a city-commissioned Dodger Stadium traffic study next year.

The proposed Dodger Stadium gondola hit a major roadblock Thursday, when a state appeals court rejected Metro’s approval of the environmental impact report for the project.

The project, proposed in 2018 by former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, requires approval from Metro, the Los Angeles City Council, Caltrans and the state parks agency.

None of the other approvals have been obtained, and the court decision Thursday requires Metro to “set aside its certification of the EIR” and “set aside its approval of the project” until a revised environmental impact report can be completed.

The gondola would run from Union Station to Dodger Stadium and would cost $385 million to $500 million to build and another $8 million to $10 million per year to operate and maintain, according to the report. Those costs, it said, could be covered by private bond financing, sponsorships, naming rights and fares — although fans have been promised free rides to Dodger games.

Metro approved the environmental impact report 15 months ago. The California Endowment and the Los Angeles Parks Alliance sued to throw out the report, on the basis Metro had not properly followed state environmental laws in approving it. The bid was denied by the Los Angeles Superior Court last August, but the plaintiffs won their appeal Thursday.