Parking or Park? Land Dilemma by Riverside

To Bryan Spangle, the strip of land is a greenbelt that could include a meandering trail, flowering shrubs and a forest of trees.

To Arthur Stone, it’s blacktop to be marked by orderly parking stalls, bright safety lights and a forest of car-radio antennas.

To others in Studio City, the narrow strip next to the concrete-walled Los Angeles River has become the latest battlefield for advocates of aesthetics and proponents of pragmatism.

Spangle is a landscape architect who wants to turn the three-block-long shoreline between Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Radford Avenue into a park-like setting, hoping that it will be a model for beautification of the river from the San Fernando Valley to the ocean.

Stone is a health-club owner who wants to convert the strip into a paved parking lot to alleviate a severe parking problem that is strangling Studio City’s main business district.

Officials Meet Today

A Los Angeles City Council committee will meet today to try to resolve the dispute.

On paper, Spangle appears to have the edge. He has 2-year-old blueprints and sketches that depict the unadorned storm-channel easement as a lush and inviting park. The plans have been prepared for submission to Los Angeles County flood-control officials.

On South Valleyheart Drive, however, Stone seems to have already won. He paved part of the strip last year and erected poles and high-intensity lights for night use. Stone said he spent $30,000 to construct the 50-car lot after county flood-control officials agreed last spring to lease the land to him.

Before he could get the parking stalls painted, however, Studio City homeowners alleged that the lot, which is in a residential zone, violates the city’s zoning and is inconsistent with their neighborhood’s community plan. They persuaded city officials to order a halt to the work.

The city planning commission ruled in November that the parking lot was consistent with the community plan’s provision that the land be left as open space. Homeowners appealed that decision to the City Council to trigger today’s 3:30 p.m. hearing before the planning and environment committee.

If the council rules that the project does not clash with the plan, Stone will apply for a zoning variance for the parking lot, his attorney said.

Anger and Frustration

Stone said he is angry at the homeowners and frustrated by the city’s cease-and-desist order. He said he has room for only about 30 cars behind his For Women Only health spa, which is used by about 125 customers a day.

“I was trying to do something to help solve the parking problem around here and keep people from parking in front of everybody’s driveways,” said Stone, a co-owner of the Laurel Canyon Boulevard spa. “I try to do a nice thing for the community, and I get screwed.”

His lawyer, Barry C. Groveman, said the dispute is a “travesty” because Stone has agreed to heavily landscape the parking lot as well as pay the county for heretofore “useless” flood-channel land.

Spangle is not without sympathy--to a point. “I feel sorry for Mr. Stone,” he said. “He made an effort to deal with a serious parking problem in Studio City. But we’re concerned that, by the time we’re ready to go ahead with the river greenbelt, every large space will be a parking lot, and there will be nothing left.”

‘It Starts to Erode’

Said Richard Bliven, a leader of the Studio City Residents Assn.: “Once you start to lose the resources, it starts to erode, and you get more and more of these intrusions on open space. We already hear of other people looking at other areas along the river for parking.”

Irwin Stanton, president of the Studio City Beautification Assn., said that, if the civic group manages to block Stone’s project, it will seek a moratorium on parking-lot construction in the river right of way along the channel’s entire length.

City officials acknowledge that the dispute is a thorny one.

“We want to get both parties together,” said Howard Raphael, chief field deputy to Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the area. Raphael is now on leave to work on Wachs’ reelection campaign but has continued to monitor the parking-lot fight.

“I don’t think there’s a 100% bad or 100% good on this. A compromise would be of benefit to the community,” he said.

The disagreement has prompted widespread attention, both inside Studio City and out.

“Parking is a challenge here,” said Sondra Frohlich, executive director of the Studio City Chamber of Commerce, which is studying ways to increase public parking in the business district. From $400,000 to $500,000 in parking-meter revenue is available to the community for development of new parking if space can be found, she said.

“The Studio City parking lot is the exact thing we’d like to avoid along the river,” said Robert S. Harris, dean of the USC School of Architecture and leader of a growing river-beautification movement.

‘A Fantastic Resource’

“The L.A. River is a fantastic resource, a significant recreation corridor. If we’re not able to start its transformation now, at least we should save the opportunity for those later on,” Harris said.

County officials are also waiting to see what action the city takes, said Jean Granucci, spokeswoman for flood-control officials in the county’s Department of Public Works.

“It was premature to put in that paving before all of the local approvals were obtained,” Granucci said. “He won’t get a lease until all required variances are obtained.”