Developer, Anti-Condo Leader Object to City Plan to Cut Cedars in Sherman Oaks : Strange Alliance Fights to Save Old Trees

In a twist on the usual development dispute, a condominium developer and the San Fernando Valley’s most vocal condominium opponents are joining forces to save what they claim is the “gateway” to Sherman Oaks.

The two sides are teaming up to attempt to prevent Los Angeles officials from removing two rows of 70-year-old cedar trees that line Van Nuys Boulevard south of Ventura Boulevard.

City engineers propose that the first of the trees be felled as a requirement for construction of an eight-unit town house nearby. After that, officials want to remove the remaining half-dozen huge cedars on the block so the street can be widened.

The plan has outraged Sherman Oaks homeowners and the developer who hopes to build the town-house project.

“The city wants to destroy the whole aura of what the community should look like,” said Fred Kramer, a Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. leader who has filed an appeal of the city’s tree-chopping order with the city Planning Commission.

Says developer Barry Bernstein of Encino: “The city doesn’t give a hoot about how long something has been growing there.”

The alliance between Kramer and Bernstein is ironic because Kramer is viewed in Sherman Oaks as the primary force behind a city moratorium limiting condominium and apartment construction south of Ventura Boulevard.

The moratorium cut by half the potential density of Bernstein’s project.

According to Kramer and Bernstein, the city’s street-widening plan is ill-conceived because only one block, the one with the trees on it, can be widened. Sections of Van Nuys Boulevard to the north and south of the trees cannot be widened because of existing commercial and residential development.

“There’s no reason to widen the street just for one block,” Kramer said. “If you put more cars in here, they won’t go anywhere because the street will narrow again in the next block.”

Richard M. Takase, a staff planner with the city, acknowledged that complete widening of the boulevard between Ventura and Valley Vista boulevards “could take 10 years, 15 years or 50 years.”

“But, if you don’t start somewhere, you never get it done,” Takase said Tuesday.

Takase said the city “is not unsympathetic” about the cedars. “But it’s a matter of weighing public safety against the trees.”

Planning commissioners will meet about 11:30 a.m. Thursday at the Van Nuys Woman’s Club to rule on the matter.

“People look upon this street as the gateway to Sherman Oaks,” Kramer said.