By Simone Maher, Community Organizing Intern
March 6, 2026
In their Impact and Sustainability Plan for the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, LA28 promises to create the most “sustainable” games in history and expand “access to a healthy environment for those most vulnerable in our community.” It’s worth noting the Paris 2024 Olympics organizers presented a similar narrative about the Games’ sustainability, yet they destroyed 4,000 square meters of public gardens to build a training facility.
LA28 has also promised a “no build” Olympics, but are planning to construct venues, spectator seating, bathrooms, training facilities, media centers, fan zones, and other infrastructure on public land. In fact, last year the California State Legislature enacted AB 149, the public resources trailer bill, to exempt Olympic and Paralympic temporary venues from the California Environmental Quality Act. This bill followed the state’s previous CEQA exemptions for “the bidding for, hosting or staging of, and funding or carrying out of” the Olympic Games. The City of Los Angeles seems likewise to be dispensing with environmental review processes; Los Angeles City Council has advanced an Olympic/Paralympic Zoning Exemption Ordinance (Council File 15-0989-S47) to exclude Olympic venues from the city’s planning and zoning regulations.
In fact, this threatens to undermine access to a healthy environment. See, for example, the planned construction of three temporary Olympic venues, the Valley Complex, in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Park. In order to build two “open-air” venues and one “octagonal” closed venue, LA28 will need to commandeer the park for who knows how long. The neighborhoods of Lake Balboa, Van Nuys, Reseda, and Sherman Oaks surrounding Sepulveda Basin Recreation Park are already “park-deficent,”and these projects will further diminish available green space in the area.
Why are Angelenos allowing our city leaders to prioritize a few weeks of Olympic Games over the long-term health, safety, and livability of our neighborhoods? Rather than streamlining LA28’s efforts to disrupt essential public resources for an exclusionary, greenwashed mega-event, Los Angeles City Council should be protecting access to essential public resources and upholding community-centered planning so that Los Angeles remains livable for those who actually live here. If they truly care about sustainability and the environment, council must reject the Olympic/Paralympic Zoning Exemption Ordinance to ensure temporary venues abide by city planning regulations.
