Panel Favors Ventura Blvd. 3-Story Limit

Expressing alarm at Ventura Boulevard’s rapid transformation from a street of small shops to a street of office buildings, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission on Thursday voted to impose a one-year moratorium on buildings of more than three stories along a 15-mile stretch of the congested San Fernando Valley thoroughfare.

Before the ban can take effect, however, it must be approved by the City Council, which recently rejected a moratorium on high-rise development in Westwood.

Affluent homeowners in Sherman Oaks, Encino, Tarzana and Woodland Hills have pushed for the ban, complaining bitterly in recent years about daylong traffic congestion that has resulted from the switch to office buildings of up to six stories, the current maximum height.

City Councilman Marvin Braude, who first proposed the moratorium, aimed at giving city planners time to devise new regulations to control development, predicted it would have a major impact in halting the spread of buildings “grossly out of scale” with surrounding stores and houses.

Most of the controversial new buildings are in Encino, but Braude predicted the “pain we feel today in Encino is what is coming tomorrow for Tarzana, Sherman Oaks, Woodland Hills and even Studio City.” A city Transportation Department report released last month predicted rush-hour traffic gridlock--with cars backed up through several signal changes--for five Encino intersections next year, when construction is completed on six office buildings.

Daniel P. Garcia, commission president, said that congestion has reached the level where, “If I thought it would fly, I’d be willing to vote for a total moratorium.”