Encino May Soon Get Meters on Ventura Blvd.

After more than 10 years of delay, a city plan to install parking meters along Ventura Boulevard in Encino may soon become reality.

Because it has taken so long, there will be twice as many meters and the hourly meter rate will be five times that first planned in 1975, a Los Angeles City Council committee decided Wednesday.

The three-member Transportation and Traffic Committee unanimously recommended adoption by the full council of an ordinance expanding the Encino Parking Meter Zone.

The measure provides for installation of 1,000 parking meters along Ventura Boulevard from the San Diego Freeway to Lindley Avenue, said Brad Rosenheim, field deputy for Councilman Marvin Braude, who represents the area. Also, as many as six meters would be placed on some major side streets, Rosenheim said.

25-Cent Hourly Rate

The committee recommended a rate of 25 cents an hour.

Braude had ordered a study of a plan to install meters along Ventura in Encino after the Encino Chamber of Commerce removed its opposition to the plan in 1984. At the time, chamber officials said the meters would force office workers to park in garages and thereby leave street spaces open for shoppers.

However, homeowner groups in the area remained opposed to the meters because they feared that office workers would park in neighborhoods instead of in high-priced garages along the boulevard.

Rosenheim said there now is no organized opposition to the plan.

But Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino, said his group opposes the meters because it does not want any parking at all between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Ventura Boulevard between Sepulveda and Balboa boulevards.

“If they put the meters in, they are not going to turn around and limit parking,” Silver said.

Because Braude supports the plan, the council can be expected to give it routine approval.

Matter of Months

Meters could be installed within a few months if the ordinance is enacted, Rosenheim said.

There are now meters along Ventura Boulevard in all communities east of Encino.

When it was created in 1975, the parking meter zone consisted of only 500 meters at an hourly rate of 5 cents, according to a city Transportation Department report. However, the city never installed those meters.

The recent move to install the meters came from the city Department of Transportation, which said enforcement of the existing one- and two-hour parking zones in front of shops and high-rise office buildings along Ventura is too costly. Officials noted that two trips are required in the unmetered zones, one to mark tires and another to give tickets.

Department officials told the committee that 25 cents an hour would “more adequately reflect the recognized values for parking in the area.” At that rate, Rosenheim said, the meters are expected to bring in about $200,000 a year, which would be be used for parking improvements.