City to Hire Consultants for Study

The Los Angeles City Council has asked private consultants to bid for the chance to study traffic, parking, building density and other planning problems in Westwood Village--a step designed to accelerate detailed studies of the congested area.

Consultants could give the village more immediate attention than the city Planning Department, which is backed up with a long list of planning studies, according to Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who introduced the proposal last week. The cost of the studies would be determined after proposals are received March 1, Yaroslavsky’s aides said.

Westwood Village was targeted for detailed planning studies in December when Yaroslavsky won approval for a one-year building moratorium to halt new commercial growth. The moratorium can be extended for an additional year by a vote of the council but can be kept to a single year if studies recommend solutions to planning problems, Yaroslavsky said.