Over the past year, there has been a great deal of debate about the Hollywood fault.  A lot of heated rhetoric came from opponents to the Millennium Hollywood project, who seized on the fault issue to try and stop the development.  Now, finally, we are beginning to see a little clarity on this issue.  We may not know exactly where the fault is, but we do know where it isn’t.

In a press release issued last week, Millennium Partners and Argent Ventures announced the results of the “most extensive urban fault investigation ever undertaken in California” that “conclusively found no evidence of an earthquake fault on their property.”

The study was conducted by Group Delta, a geological and geotechnical engineering consulting firm that they and three other property owners hired.  The firm found no active fault traces on any of the four properties.

Then, on Thursday, at a public hearing held in Sacramento by the State Mining and Geology Board (SMGB), the executive officer of the board, Steve Testa, reviewed the data, said that he had made direct geologic observations of the fault trench walls and had studied the preliminary data that had been generated.  He concluded with this statement:  “Should the conclusions set forth prove definitive, such results would be cause for modification of the earthquake fault zone map within the subject area.”

The SMGB board voted to adopt his recommendations and forwarded those, along with 200 pages of testimony to State Geologist John Parrish, who has the final say on how the Hollywood Fault Zone map will be drawn.  He has 90 days to make his decision – until November 14^th.

The detailed documentation for the conclusions drawn by Group Delta will be completed and submitted by the end of August to Mr. Parrish.  We trust he will wait for that data and study it, as recommended by the SMGB, before issuing his final map.

If the data holds up, as the SMGB executive officer believes it will, then these four properties should be removed from the map, so that they can move forward with their development plans, which will create hundreds of needed jobs here in Hollywood.

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Leron Gubler has been serving as the President and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for the past 22 years. His tenure since 1992 continues to oversee the great comeback story of Hollywood.