She has a vision for Granada Hills, and not everybody sees it her way

Linda Williamson has a vision for the heart of her San Fernando Valley hometown. She imagines yoga classes, street fairs and a weekly Farmers Market on a space that is now a right-turn lane connecting two busy boulevards in Granada Hills.

She wants to take advantage of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s People Street program, which encourages neighborhood groups to close off streets and alleys and create their own small parks and plazas. The city streamlines the paperwork, and local groups come up with the money to build and maintain the projects.

Williamson has 1,000 signatures from people who support her — and fierce opposition from the one person with the power to block the project: Jake Parunyan owns the property that would abut the plaza. Program rules give him veto rights.

Parunyan has spent decades supporting community groups and bankrolling civic projects. He bought a foreclosed restaurant on that corner; the eyesore is now a popular yogurt shop with patio tables out front. Then he helped turn a little-used patch of grass into a tiny Veterans Park across the street from the yogurt shop at Chatsworth Street and Zelzah Avenue.

“Now all of a sudden,” he says, “this lady comes along and wants to change everything.”

Williamson doesn’t actually want to change everything, just the image of her sleepy suburb in the foothills of the Santa Susana mountains. “People want a sense of pride in their community. ‘This is where I live. Come see it!’ We have to bring people out.”

She imagines an upscale place “where people from all over could come and hang out,” just as they do in Sunset Triangle, the thriving pedestrian plaza in Silver Lake.

But the residents of Granada Hills may want a different lifestyle: no hipsters, no graffiti, no bicyclists hogging the road.

::

Parunyan is the project’s most visible opponent, but he’s not the only one, said Los Angeles Councilman Mitch Englander, who lives in Granada Hills, a stone’s throw from the project. The Chamber of Commerce doesn’t want it, he said. The Business Improvement District and Rotary Club aren’t on board.

They worry that a plaza would hurt traffic flow, create safety issues and block parking and access to storefront businesses in the area — flower shops, tutoring centers, bakeries, beauty salons. Englander offered to fund the project if they would try it for one year, but the business groups said no.

“A lot of residents in the area say it’s a nice idea; they’d use it once in a while. They’re mildly interested; enough to sign a petition.” But that’s not enough, Englander said.

“The People Street concept is great, in the right place. It has to makes sense to residents and [business] property owners,” he said. “Here there are extremes for and against, but nobody seems to be in love with the idea.”

Except Williamson. A journalist who was born and raised in Granada Hills, she moved away after college, then returned 15 years ago to raise her two children here. She blogs about community issues and helped launch the popular Friday night food truck cavalcade along Chatsworth Street, the suburb’s main drag.

When the food trucks first showed up, the business owners hated that too, Williamson recalled. “It’s calmed down, but there are still people who say, ‘This is going to ruin us. It brings in a bad element. What are all these strange people walking on our sidewalks?’ They’re just not used to seeing people on the streets.

“But before the food trucks, people didn’t know Granada Hills existed.... If you wanted something like this, you had to drive over the hill,” she said. “Now people see the potential of what Granada Hills can be.”

And maybe that’s the rub. Some people want to jazz up the neighborhood; some are comfortable with what it is.

::

I live two miles from Granada Hills — though it feels like 10 miles, all uphill, when I ride my bike to the hardware store or walk to food truck night.

It’s a leafy, lovely, comfortable town that stretches from hillsides with million-dollar homes to busy streets flanked by apartments. There’s a parade every Christmas and a tree-lighting ceremony, just down the block from the VFW hall.

I understand Williamson’s impulse to show it off — and show it love: Stop cocooning in backyards and socialize on the streets. Stop settling for chain stores and coffee shops and imagine boutiques and cafes.

That’s the vision that’s drives her. And she’s disappointed that business groups won’t give her a hearing: “It reminds me of those Malibu beachfront property owners who say ‘I own my house so I’m going to block access to the ocean. I don’t want anyone on my beach.’”

But business owners feel slighted too. They’ve spent years sprucing up the area with benches, bike racks, flowers and flags, and none of that seems to matter to the yoga-on-the-sidewalk crowd.

“I’m involved in my community. I help my community,” Parunyan said. “Day and night I’m here in this community. I prove myself… This is the first time in 40 years that I’m in the battle that I am [considered] the bad guy.”

The “bad guy” is not backing down. He sees the traffic-blocking plaza as a threat to his investment and will go to court to fight it if he has to.

And Williamson doesn’t sound as if she is ready to give up: “Is it radical to want something that’s in your community that you can walk or bike to and see your neighbors and your friends?

“I didn’t go into this thinking it would be a big fight,” she said. “I thought everyone’s going to think this is a great idea. I was very naive.”

sandy.banks@latimes.com

Twitter: @SandyBanksLAT