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New York developers Millennium Partners are renovating the corner of Hollywood and Vine in an attempt to “transform a series of under-utilized parcels into a transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly development central to the resurgence of Vine Street as a business and high-rise corridor,” according to the project website.

“The project is right for Hollywood because it’s a city of fantasy and spectacle,” said Philip Aarons in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Its history comes from thinking big." 

The project, nicknamed the Hollywood Millennium, is going to be constructed on unused parking lots located across from the Capitol Records building, within seeing distance from the Hollywood 101 Freeway.

Despite promises of a modern Hollywood “pedestrian, shopping, and dining experience,” Hollywood Millennium is facing major opposition from Hollywood community groups, government agencies responsible for public transportation, and even concerned geologists.

Caltrans, or the California Department of Transportation, has accused the $664-million Millennium Project of bypassing the due process of state law through misleading statistics supported by willing city officials.

Caltrans has openly dismissed an environmental impact report released by the developer claiming that the project will have a “less-than-significant” impact on the nearby 101 Freeway, and would add less than 150 cars per rush hour.

“The conclusion is not based on any credible analysis that could be found anywhere,” wrote Dianna Watson, Caltran’s branch chief, in a letter to the city planning commission.

The Caltrans department is afraid of more congestion from highway on-ramps onto urban streets, which not only will cause excessive automobile exhaust in residential areas but also create more possibly dangerous encounters between vehicles and pedestrians, the L.A. Times reports.

The California Geological Survey also sent a letter to City Council president Herb Wesson warning that the Hollywood Millennium project may be sitting on an earthquake fault line. 

State Geologist John Parrish writes in the letter a plea for Wesson to “withhold development permits for sites within the zones until geologic investigations demonstrate that the sites are not threatened by surface displacement from future faulting,” according to LA Weekly.

More importantly, Millennium Partners has to face another huge obstacle in the coming weeks – Caltrans’ analysis includes the contention that Hollywood Millennium’s failure to anticipate and mitigate potential crippling congestion on the Hollywood Freeway is in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.

Hollywood community group Communities United for Reasonable Development (CURD) has 30 days to decide whether or not to use CEQA to legally attack the project.

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