Entertainment giant AEG reached a settlement with stadium opposition among residents and social campaigners. For $15 million invested in affordable housing the group may proceed with Farmers Field in downtown L.A., Los Angeles Daily News reports.

In Summer local residents and poverty fighting campaigners formed a coalition called Fair Play Farmers Field (FPFF). All of them were fearing that the 72,000-seat stadium wouldn’t bring much benefit to the environment around it, instead decreasing life conditions and widening the gap between rich and poor.

In August they filed a lawsuit, demanding to overthrow new legislation that allowed AEG to shorten the environmental process to just 175 days before getting a green light with construction process. In the eyes of FPFF this law was just intended to give them less time and to effectively circumvent the normal planning process.

For the last few months Anschutz Entertainment Group have been negotiating with the coalition and finally managed to reach an agreement last week. For FPFF to get off AEG’s back the giant will have to pay $15 million for affordable housing neighbouring the stadium.

If this seems like a costly settlement, let’s keep in mind that the stadium is expected to cost $1.2 billion and already a record-breaking 700 million was earned via naming rights deal with Farmers Insurance (to be paid over a period of 30 years).

Construction is expected to start in March 2013 and end in Fall 2016. This is almost a year-long delay already, before the construction process even started.