The matter of community names makes even experts babble

It appears that some inventive West Valley residents have touched off a storm that won’t go away by asking the city to clarify exactly where they live.

This began several months ago when the owners of some expensive homes on the western rim of the Valley petitioned for a legal separation from the name Canoga Park. That name, everyone seems to agree, conjures images of immigrant workers, nuclear research and country and western bars, but not of a nice place to live.

Though there was no precedent for secession from a name, the area’s City Council representatives, Joy Picus and Hal Bernson, agreed to let them call their neighborhood West Hills.

The change certainly improved the self-esteem of people living more or less west of Platt Avenue. And all seemed well until others just outside the new West Hills boundary gave a moment’s thought to their self-esteem and realized they suddenly belonged to a community that was gutted of its most prestigious homes.

So West Hills grew eastward to Fallbrook Avenue. Then more neighborhoods wanted to join, and finally Councilwoman Picus, sensing the onset of public hysteria, said she wished it would all just go away.

Don’t count on it. The people of West Hills, it seems to me, have thought up something as seductive as palimony.

Like city council and legislative districts, the Valley’s communities could use an occasional reapportionment.

As things stand, it is hard to know just where you are anywhere in the Valley.

To illustrate, for many years The Times’ management referred to its future Valley operation merely as “Northridge.” Then someone discovered that the property was actually in Chatsworth.

The confusion prevails everywhere.

Where, for example, does Van Nuys meet Reseda?

The Thomas Guide, the bible of how to get where you’re going in Los Angeles, offers no help.

It shows Van Nuys right where everybody knows it is, at the intersection of Victory and Van Nuys boulevards, and Reseda, likewise, at Sherman Way and Reseda Boulevard.

But suppose you live on Delano Street, just east of White Oak Avenue. Is that Van Nuys or Reseda?

According to Thomas Bros. Maps’ listing of ZIP codes, you actually live in Encino.

The matter of community names makes even experts babble.

“There really are no distinct boundaries for communities,” Richard Duerr, senior service representative for the American Automobile Assn., told a colleague of mine last week. “There’s no place where you can say, ‘Now I’m crossing the city line from Van Nuys to Encino.’ ”

City Planning Director Kenneth Topping added, “The boundary-setting process historically has been rather informal.”

Though unsatisfying, both explanations are probably right. Originally, the Valley had only a few small communities. These were easy to tell apart because there was so much empty space between them.

An area became a town when the United States government gave it a post office. Today, those postal boundaries, now ZIP codes, still give the communities their names.

But the communities themselves are overflowing their boundaries like flood-swollen lakes. Many new man-made barriers cut oddly through the mess, making distinctions seem all but meaningless.

Why should the edge of Sherman Oaks spill a few blocks west of the San Diego Freeway, the Valley’s most distinct physical barrier? Why should a railroad track so effectively divide the community of Northridge that in some places you must drive miles east or west to get just one block south?

Meanwhile, like little downtowns, the centers of Valley communities have grown crusty with age. It is no longer chic to live in, say, North Hollywood, which is where you go to find auto parts and second-hand bathroom fixtures.

I think quite a few people living south of Chandler Boulevard would prefer a Studio City address.

Why not let them have it? Let all the communities reshape themselves to better reflect the social realities of the day, as their residents see them.

The only significant wrinkle I could see, other than the petty disputes people will get into, arises from the suggestion made last week by some real estate agents who believe the name change from Canoga Park to West Hills has increased home values by as much as $30,000.

Naturally, those who were left out by a block or two felt that more than their pride was hurt. They thought they were being robbed.

That problem can be handled, though. It should be easy to see that if the city can add $30,000 to the value of a house merely by changing its community name, it has stumbled onto a painless source of revenue.

After all, what has the homeowner done to earn the money?

Why not attach a lien to the house, based upon the fair-market value of the name? When the house eventually changes hands, the city will collect.

Then it can begin to pay for its own sins. Remember the crumbling sidewalks of Farralone Avenue? That’s in old Canoga Park. The city planted the mulberry trees that are causing the damage but doesn’t have the money to pay for the repairs. So it is billing the homeowners.

Maybe the new residents of West Hills could pick up the tab.