Homeowners Angered by Development : Ventura Boulevard Protest Gets Louder

The noise level along Ventura Boulevard is higher these days--and not only because of the din from construction and increased traffic.

From Woodland Hills to Studio City, along 15 miles of the San Fernando Valley’s most prosperous thoroughfare, new and reborn homeowner associations are noisily agitating for preservation of their vision of the good life in the face of large-scale development.

Chief among the demands of this growing army of disaffected residents is a halt to the construction of the high-rise office buildings that have been displacing Ventura Boulevard’s upscale shops in recent years.

A secondary goal is a thinning out of the forest of commercial signs that has given the boulevard what one homeowner leader calls “a honky-tonk Las Vegas appearance.”

Opinions Differ

They have had some successes, although opinions differ on the value of the homeowner victories. In recent months, homeowners have succeeded in winning:

Overwhelming Los Angeles City Council approval last week of a proposal to impose a one-year moratorium on high-rise development on Ventura Boulevard between Woodland Hills and Studio City.

Planning Commission approval of an ordinance that, if approved by the council, would ban billboards in Encino and force removal of more than 40% of existing commercial signs.

Council approval of an ordinance that commits the city to roll back densities on one-fourth of all land parcels in the city in order to make zoning laws consistent with the general plan.

Also buoying spirits among homeowner leaders in the affluent communities of Woodland Hills, Tarzana, Encino, Sherman Oaks and Studio City is a movement in recent weeks of residents on both sides of the Santa Monica Mountains to form a coalition called Not Yet New York. Organizers of the coalition said they feel that, by pressuring council members, they can significantly increase their effectiveness in fighting large-scale development.

Homeowner activists were further heartened by the ouster in June of incumbent Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson, who was hurt politically by challenger Michael Woo’s accusations that she regularly sided with developers against her Hollywood-area constituents. Homeowner leaders say they expect other council members to pay more attention to their demands in order to avoid Stevenson’s fate.

Membership Increases

All of the established hillside groups have experienced membership increases and have stepped up their lobbying in recent years. Membership in one group, the Studio City Residents Assn., has grown from fewer than 100 to about 1,300 in five years.

Two new homeowner groups have formed--the Homeowners of Encino, which in recent years has emerged as the feistiest of the hillside homeowner groups, and Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, which since its founding last November has plunged into half a dozen development issues along Ventura Boulevard and in Warner Center.

But homeowner leaders have enjoyed the heady feeling of success before--as when they banded together a decade ago to prevent commercial development along Mulholland Drive, or fought back several cross-mountain freeways in the 1960s--only to see their influence rapidly wane once the issue that swelled their numbers was resolved.

There is disagreement whether the current explosion of homeowner activity signals merely another in a series of periodic waves of anti-development sentiment or a new era of homeowner power.

Permanent Change Seen

Among those who see permanent change occurring is Dan Shapiro, president of Studio City Residents Assn., who predicts that a broad coalition of homeowner associations will soon emerge and prove to be “more powerful than any single politician or lobbyist in the city.”

Shapiro based his expectation on the growing political sophistication of homeowner leaders, the increased use of computerized mailing lists to mobilize residents and the fact that Ventura Boulevard congestion has a direct effect on large numbers of residents.

A different assessment comes from Ola Kaufman, a Sherman Oaks television writer who in recent months has emerged as a leader in the fight against Ventura Boulevard development.

Stunned by what she views as the “overwhelming influence of developers” over the council, she said she sees the next few years “filled with long, bitter battles with developers that will end with residents forced to accept a lot of ugliness and congestion. I’m not optimistic.”

Ascendancy Doubted

Similarly, Councilman Marvin Braude, who represents Tarzana, Encino and part of Sherman Oaks and who led the council fight for the high-rise moratorium, expressed doubt that the recent burst of activity on the part of homeowners will usher in an era of homeowner ascendancy.

“There always has been a lot of activity in these communities, and I have always encouraged that,” Braude said. “Maybe there’s a bit more cooperation now between the various groups, but I don’t see the success of the moratorium as signaling any fundamental changes.”

In Braude’s view, the moratorium on buildings higher than three stories sailed through the council without dissent on first reading not because of homeowner groups but because he had insisted on detailed staff reports documenting its need and “because there is a broad consensus that the boulevard is in a crisis situation.”

He cited as particularly effective a city Department of Transportation report that predicted traffic gridlock--with vehicles backed up through several signal changes--at six Encino intersections after six high-rise buildings are completed next year.

Support by Wachs, Picus

The moratorium, which benefitted politically from the backing of Valley council members Joel Wachs and Joy Picus, also reduces by 50% the interior area allowed for structures built along Ventura Boulevard.

The measure, which can be extended another year by council vote, is designed to give city planners time to devise new regulations controlling development along the thoroughfare.

Those who doubt that homeowner power has increased significantly point out that the major achievement of the past year--the density rollback to levels permitted under the city’s general plan, which is more restrictive than the zoning laws--was not a council initiative but the result of a court decision.

The council acted, and then only after dragging its feet for months, after a Superior Court judge ruled that the city was in violation of a state law requiring elimination of discrepancies between a community’s zoning laws and its general plan.

However, homeowners can take credit for getting the issue before the courts, and therefore before the council. The suit that resulted in the ruling was filed by the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., which represents 39 mountain-area homeowner associations, including those from the five Ventura Boulevard communities.

The current wave of activity along Ventura Boulevard was preceded by new leadership taking over several of the homeowner associations.

As befits the affluent, well-educated population of the hillside communities, leaders are often professionals, including several lawyers, a dentist, a college professor and a clinical psychologist.

Most of the new leaders live close to the boulevard and have had personal experience with billboard lights shining into their homes or office employees taking up every available parking spot in their neighborhood.

Exceptions Noted

An exception is Richard Close, president of Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. since 1976, who joined to fight commercial development near his home in the Santa Monica Mountains, yet remains active today on Ventura Boulevard issues.

Another exception is the leadership of Tarzana Property Owners Assn., which is little changed since it was founded in 1962 by Louise Frankel, who remains active in association affairs.

There were only 35 members when Shapiro joined the Studio City Residents Assn. in 1980 to protest a proposed 14-story office building that would have loomed over his house a few blocks from Ventura Boulevard.

Their ranks swelled by large-scale mailings and by demonstrated success in forcing developers to scale down projects, the Studio City group now has 1,300 member households that pay annual dues of $10 each, Shapiro said.

Group Thought Too Timid

Also typical of new leaders is Gerald A. Silver, a teacher of business administration at Los Angeles City College who in 1981 broke from Encino Property Owners Assn., which he considered too timid, and founded Homeowners of Encino.

Homeowners of Encino was the organization that initially demanded the moratorium and the Encino sign ordinance.

Silver, president of the group, is a disciple of what he terms the “strident and aggressive approach” to lobbying city officials.

Rather than express gratitude at the moratorium, he has denounced the measure as “far too little too late” and chided Braude for being too timid to push for a complete halt to new construction.

Officials Seldom Praised

Silver and others in his group seldom praise city officials, although they are quick to criticize them. On the other hand, they stay on speaking terms with virtually all elected officials, never allowing a rift to break off communication.

“The goal is to get your point across forcefully, letting them know you mean business and you expect them to stand up to pressure from developers,” Shapiro said, “but not being so nasty as to break off dialogue.”

A year ago, when Shapiro and Close suggested that homeowners form a political action committee to contribute to the campaigns of city officials they favored, Silver was aghast. Proponents said campaign contributions would gain homeowners a better reception in council chambers and would help ensure the election and reelection of sympathetic council members.

But Silver said: “I see no reason why we should buy back the city. Elected officials are elected to do the bidding of the voters. They should not have to be paid to do their duty.”

Contribution Plan Shelved

The idea for campaign contributions was shelved when there was insufficient support, Close said.

On the other hand, like all homeowner associations along the boulevard, Silver’s group maintains cordial relations with staff members of the city planning and traffic departments, frequently inviting them to speak at the association’s monthly meetings.

Monthly meetings of the Encino group usually draw 50 to 80 residents, about average for homeowner associations in the five Ventura Boulevard communities.

Each group also keeps in touch with its full membership through a monthly newsletter containing summaries of major issues, reprints of newspaper articles and commentary from association leaders.