2 Proposals Made to Ease Traffic Jams on Winnetka

A major thoroughfare, Winnetka Avenue cuts a wide swath through the West San Fernando Valley--and then ends abruptly at Devonshire Street.

Northbound motorists on Winnetka are forced to turn at Devonshire.

The problem: North of Devonshire lie the electronically operated gates to Chatsworth’s Monteria Estates, which has been home to some of the Valley’s wealthiest residents for more than 50 years.

The mile-long stretch of Winnetka between Devonshire and the Simi Valley Freeway is a winding private road, closed to the flood of motorists generated by the fast-growing Chatsworth-Northridge industrial area immediately south of Monteria Estates.

Now, two proposals have surfaced to relieve the resulting traffic crunch.

Winnetka to Stay Private

Each would lure motorists away from heavily congested De Soto and Tampa avenues, which are the only convenient routes linking the freeway, California 118, with the industrial area.

Neither plan involves making Winnetka a public street through the estates, a proposal pushed for several years after the freeway opened in 1982 by the now-defunct Chatsworth Homeowners Assn.

One of the new proposals is to extend Mason Avenue north over the freeway and link up with Rinaldi Street, which would be paved east to connect with the never-used freeway ramps at Winnetka.

The other would extend Corbin Avenue one mile north across the freeway to intersect with Rinaldi, which would be paved east to Tampa Avenue.

No Money Available

But there is no consensus in the community over which plan should have higher priority, and proponents acknowledge that there is no money for either plan.

Furthermore, road-building funds are not likely to be available unless developers pushing controversial housing projects for the foothills north of the freeway are allowed to proceed.

The absence of any push for converting the Monteria Estates portion of Winnetka into a public road represents a remarkable victory for residents of the 32-home community.

Over the years, Monteria Estates residents, led by actor Chad Everett and grocery executive Bernard Gelson, have strenuously rebuffed all who covet their street.

Val Silbernagel, a former president of the Monteria Estates Assn., said residents of the horse-oriented community, where houses range in size from 5,000 to 16,000 square feet, feel that pushing Winnetka through would have a “terribly disruptive effect on our homes.”

Residents Fought Pact

Estates residents went to the ramparts in 1971 when Los Angeles city officials signed an agreement with the state covering the Simi Freeway that showed Winnetka running through the estates.

There was nothing specific in the agreement to indicate that the street would be converted from private to public.

But a state Department of Transportation official said: “Since we don’t recognize private streets, that indicates it was envisioned as becoming a public street.”

On the basis of the agreement, the spokesman said, Caltrans designed into the freeway project eastbound and westbound ramps and a connecting overpass at Winnetka, at an estimated cost of about $1 million.

But converting a private street to public use is a city matter, and estates residents succeeded in squelching any such efforts by the city.

Thus, when the freeway was completed in 1982, the four ramps were barricaded and have never been used.

Since the small local homeowner organization ceased to function more than a year ago, agitation for opening Winnetka appears to have ceased.

Richard L. Miller, Chatsworth Chamber of Commerce president, said that, while the business community feels commuter traffic on De Soto and Tampa is “horrendous,” he can recall no one advocating converting Winnetka to a public road.

“Most of the community feels it will never happen,” he said. “I don’t even hear it mentioned as a topic anymore.”

Mason Plan Backed

Emilio Basile, chairman of a city advisory committee revising the Chatsworth-Porter Ranch community plan, which governs land use for the area, said there was no support among committee members for opening the private part of Winnetka to the public.

Instead, the committee backed the Mason Avenue plan, Basile said. The committee’s work is being incorporated into maps by city planners and is expected to be available to the public in about four months, he said.

Ruth Zitch, who heads the traffic subcommittee, said her group “felt very, very strongly that the first thing to do is to put Mason through as soon as possible.”

She said congestion on De Soto is “terrible south of the freeway, even worse than on Tampa.”

But City Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents Chatsworth and Northridge, gives the Corbin Avenue plan a higher priority.

He said “rumblings among developers” indicate that several large projects along the Corbin Avenue-Rinaldi Street route are likely to get under way in the next few years.

“Since developers now pay for most of the road improvements in the city, that indicates to me that access to the freeway via Corbin is far more likely to be available than access via Mason,” he said.

Study May Cause Delay

On the other hand, he said, the city is in the midst of a lengthy study about the feasibility of permitting either a neighborhood or regional shopping center north of the intersection of Mason and Rinaldi. The study is likely to postpone any decision about streets in the area, Bernson said.

A further problem with Mason is that it is interrupted at the Southern Pacific railroad tracks a mile south of Devonshire, Bernson said, reducing Mason’s efficiency as a traffic artery.

Since being elected to the council in 1979, Bernson has vigorously supported the Monteria Estates residents, saying they are a “community of long standing, and I don’t see any reason to disrupt that neighborhood.”

He said that, because the road winds through the estates, many front lawns and possibly some homes would have to be condemned.

But Bernson refused last week to rule out ever converting the road to public use, particularly if such proposed freeway access routes as Corbin also become congested.

“Maybe some day congestion will become so bad that the city will give Winnetka a high priority,” Bernson said, “and possibly some of the big employers will be willing to pay for it. If that happens, I might not be opposed to it going through.”