All Miffed: Those in or Out of West Hills : Name Change Ends Up Pleasing No One

Ask actor Robert Hechtman where he lives and he euphemistically replies, “The far West Valley.” Real estate agent Lil Younger describes her home as “almost in Woodland Hills.”

Hechtman and Younger live in Canoga Park but go to great lengths to avoid saying so. The two were heartened, therefore, in February, when they learned that they could call themselves residents of the newly designated community of West Hills.

“Canoga Park has a bad reputation. There’s a stigma to the name Canoga Park,” Hechtman said. “It’s the difference between an Oldsmobile and a Cadillac.”

Mood Changes

But their elation turned to anger when they discovered that, although they can call themselves residents of West Hills, their neighborhood is not included in its boundaries.

Their experience reflects how a seemingly innocuous move by residents of a three-square-mile neighborhood to distinguish themselves from Canoga Park’s factories and aging subdivisions has snowballed into an ongoing controversy.

Angry residents, threatening lawsuits and circulating petitions, are demanding that their City Council representative, Joy Picus, extend the West Hills boundaries to include their neighborhoods.

“Without prior public notice, she went off and granted a select, elitist group this West Hills designation. We’ve been fleeced without due process of law,” said real estate agent Monroe Epstein, who is heading a campaign by nearly 200 homeowners in Vanowen Estates to be part of West Hills.

The Canoga Park Chamber of Commerce is receiving calls from residents who want to be part of West Hills, executive assistant Gilda Ban said.

“They feel it should have been put to a vote. They feel very resentful,” Ban said. “They feel they should have been asked.”

The difference is more than merely a matter of prestige. Residents believe that being included in West Hills will increase their property values and lower insurance rates. Some real estate agents maintain that the West Hills name may add tens of thousands of dollars to the value of homes being resold and warn that lawsuits could result if a Canoga Park home is mistakenly described to a buyer as a West Hills residence.

Homeowners Riled

Also upset are affluent homeowners in the West Hills Property Assn., the group that sought and received the name change. They are opposed to extensions of the boundaries, which they contend have diminished their exclusivity.

“Our group as much as anybody would like to see more definition of the boundaries,” said Joel Schiffman, the association’s president. “The whole concept of this was that we’d have a hillside residential community. The original concept has just completely gotten lost.”

Picus, meanwhile, has said that she wishes it would all go away.

“There’s no stopping it,” Picus told Hechtman and Younger in a meeting Thursday at her district office, where she denied their requests to extend the official boundaries to include their homes. “I don’t choose to sign up my whole district. I don’t choose to change the name of all of Canoga Park to West Hills.”

The controversy began last fall when the group led by Schiffman launched a petition campaign that persuaded Picus to give the name of West Hills to an area of 4,350 homes in the hilly western portion of Canoga Park.

Boundaries Set

At the group’s request, Picus set the boundaries at Roscoe Boulevard on the north, Woodlake Avenue, Sherman Way and Platt Avenue on the east, Victory Boulevard on the south and the Ventura County line on the west.

West Hills thus became one of 78 recognized communities within the City of Los Angeles, according to Councilman Hal Bernson.

Picus and Bernson, whose districts include the western San Fernando Valley, were immediately deluged with calls from other Canoga Park residents wanting to be part of West Hills.

Bernson granted permission to residents of three Canoga Park neighborhoods in his district who petitioned to join West Hills. When homeowners outside the boundaries in her district asked to be included, Picus told them she would accept no further petitions but would allow those living west of Fallbrook Avenue to call themselves West Hills residents if they wanted to.

Members of Schiffman’s group were miffed. “It does a lot to erode the community identity we sought,” Schiffman said.

Younger and Hechtman, who have gathered signatures from about 500 of their would-be West Hills neighbors, accuse Schiffman’s group of being snobbish, a contention that Schiffman denies.

Members of Younger and Hechtman’s group said they plan to find a lawyer living in their neighborhood to file a lawsuit seeking an injunction against use of the name by Schiffman’s group.

“We’ve been a very quiet, sleepy little community going about our business. But now she’s really done us wrong, and we have become a roaring lion,” Younger said.

Picus asserts that her position on the boundaries has been misunderstood by the homeowners and by the news media, which have been following the West Hills story since October, when the first petitioners launched their campaign.

“I never extended the boundaries. I never changed them. The only boundaries are the ones of the original group,” Picus said.

sh The Right ZIP Code

However, Picus and her staff have told residents in the two-mile strip between Fallbrook Avenue and Platt and Woodlake avenues, who want to be included in the West Hills boundaries, that they can call themselves whatever they like as long as they use the right ZIP code. The exact boundaries are unimportant, she said.

“It’s all in the ZIP code designation. You can call yourself Timbuktu as long as you use the ZIP code correctly,” Picus’ press aide, Susan Pasternak, has said.

But John Conte, a spokesman for the Postal Service’s Van Nuys district, which includes West Hills and Canoga Park, said Picus’ position is “chancy.”

“That area is Canoga Park as far as we’re concerned,” he said of the disputed zone. “It’s more efficient to call themselves what they are. Why create more confusion? Chances are they’re going to get their mail, but there could be a delay.”

The West Hills designation will be included in next year’s ZIP code directory, with boundaries supplied by Bernson and Picus, Conte said.

Schiffman’s group received a blow in March when the Postal Service turned down its request for a separate ZIP code. Officials said it would cost too much and would have “no operational or cost advantage to the Postal Service” but would inconvenience customers, Conte said.

“We don’t establish ZIP codes for community identity,” he said. “We establish them for the most efficient mail-processing scheme.”

Schiffman said Reps. Anthony C. Beilenson and Elton Gallegly and U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson are working to persuade the Postal Service to approve the zone.

Matter of Values

Many real estate agents say home values in the new community have jumped as much as $30,000 in the four months since the name change.

Epstein, a real estate agent in the Valley since 1961, agreed. “I can show you some homes in the West Hills area where people have asked and received $10,000 or $15,000 more than before this change went through,” he said. “In the same area where houses were selling for $135,000, they’re suddenly going for $140,000, $145,000, $150,000, and I’ve seen them go as high as $165,000,” Epstein said.

“Let’s face it. People buy location,” Epstein said.

“West Hills now falls into a prime area, just by divorcing themselves from Canoga Park,” said Temmy Walker, president of James R. Gary & Co. Ltd. East in Studio City.

Not all real estate agents agree that the designation has boosted prices.

“We were so excited, and everybody thought property values were going to go up. They haven’t at this point,” said Pat Laird, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker, as she conducted an open house in West Hills.

Sellers are asking but not necessarily getting higher prices, she said.

Real estate agent Don Preiss, with Century 21, said property values have gone up all over the Valley, so it is difficult to determine whether the name change is responsible for any rise in values.

General Increase

The San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors in February released statistics showing that home prices in the Valley rose an average of 18% over last year during February.

“Not one person has come and looked here and asked, ‘Is this Canoga Park?’ ” said Gerta Knox, a real estate agent conducting an open house in West Hills.

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me,” said Hal Harris, 50, a screenwriter who was looking at the house. “I’ve been in areas of West Hills that are more run-down than ‘terrible run-down Canoga Park,’ ” said his wife, Jan.

But Tony Koss, a real estate agent holding an open house last weekend in West Hills, said he recently advised a man who had been looking for six months for a home in Woodland Hills to try farther north.

“That’s Canoga Park. I don’t want to live in Canoga Park,” Koss quoted the man as saying.

“This is West Hills. This isn’t Canoga,” Koss said he replied. “Now he’s looking in this area.”