West Valley Residents Call for Stricter Curbs on Development

Homeowners in the western San Fernando Valley urged Los Angeles officials Thursday night to take even stronger measures to control growth in Canoga Park and Woodland Hills.

Residents asked city planners to toughen long-range zoning standards recently proposed to guide development in the two communities into the 21st Century.

“We’re already too industrialized with high buildings,” Canoga Park homeowner Irene Friedman told a city hearing officer who is overseeing completion of a new zoning map for a 30-square-mile part of the West Valley.

“We’d like to keep it the way it is right now.”

Friedman, who said she has lived in the area 25 years, was one of about 300 residents who attended a hearing at Parkman Junior High School on the new zoning for parts of a 16,544-acre area south of Roscoe Boulevard and west of Corbin Avenue. Besides Woodland Hills and Canoga Park, the proposed map also includes residential neighborhoods of West Hills and Winnetka.

Court-Ordered Rezoning

The rezoning is required by state law and a court case that ordered that local land-use maps conform to a 1984 Los Angeles city master plan.

Officials said the recommended zone changes are aimed at preserving the low-rise look of Canoga Park and Woodland Hills, while at the same time allowing for an expected 32% population increase in the area by the year 2000.

That would raise the area’s population to 181,400, from a 1984 total of 137,453.

Thousands of Lots

The 750 proposed changes would affect thousands of individual lots.

Most would be minor adjustments reflecting current land use, but others would be zoning rollbacks that would radically restrict development of some property.

The recommendations would slap a three-story height limit on most new office buildings along major commercial streets, such as Sherman Way and Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Canoga Park. Similar restrictions would be imposed in most of the Warner Center area of Woodland Hills.

Freeway, Ridge Lines

Elsewhere, planners said, they seek to limit construction on ridge lines and restrict development near the Ventura Freeway at the western edge of the Valley.

“We applaud the three-story height,” said Canoga Park homeowner Bruce Miller, who lives near an industrial area. “But we’d like it zoned so no buildings can be built any higher than what’s already there. We want something we can enjoy coming home to.”

Woodland Hills homeowner Julie Raskoff displayed a map and photos to show how her neighborhood south of Ventura Boulevard near Corbin Avenue has been affected by recent development.

“The developers are not content to occupy the commercial areas,” she told city hearing officer Edward Barr. “They want to move into residential districts.”

Warner Center resident Melvin Perlitsh urged Barr to make certain that an open-space zoning designation is retained for small Warner Park near his home. The site has been discussed for a cultural-center site.

“I hope we’re not 20 years too late to control growth in our community,” Perlitsh said.