Local News in Brief : Residents Protest Plan to Build 171 Units on 6 Acres in Encino

Encino residents Tuesday protested plans to build 171 apartment units on a six-acre estate owned by Doris (Dodo) Meyer, chief San Fernando Valley aide to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

Meyer and her husband, Stanley, are seeking a zone change for a part of the White Oak Avenue property--between the Ventura Freeway and Ventura Boulevard--that would allow the development. City land-use designations now allow 96 units.

The apartments are being planned by GBW Properties, a development company that is negotiating to buy the site from the Meyers. The final sale price reportedly will depend on the zoning of the parcel.

Nearby residents and property owners told a planning commission hearing officer in Van Nuys on Tuesday that the higher density would contribute to traffic congestion in Encino.

“It’s almost gridlock right now,” said Joel Goldman, who has lived next to the site nearly 11 years. Goldman and his neighbors fear that the apartment project will increase to 290 units if given a “density bonus” by the city, he said. Extra units are sometimes permitted if a project contains enough moderate-rent units to qualify as “affordable housing.”

Cindy Miscikowski, an aide to Encino-area City Councilman Marvin Braude, also voiced opposition at the hearing to the zoning change.

The Meyers were represented at the hearing by a private land-use consultant. Afterward, Meyer said she has not been involved in the rezoning request. The zoning that would permit 96 units dates to 1976, when a condominium project was planned, she said.

Planning officials said they will accept written comments about the project for another week before preparing a recommendation for the planning commission, which will hold a hearing on the zone-change request.