Road Fees Proposed for Warner Center

Warner Center developers were told Thursday to reach for their checkbooks to help prevent gridlock in the fast-growing west San Fernando Valley urban center.

Los Angeles planning commissioners approved an interim ordinance requiring developers to pay fees to the city’s Department of Transportation to finance transportation improvement projects in the 1,100-acre residential-commercial center.

Transportation engineers will review all new developments to determine how much money is owed. They will also establish parking requirements for each construction project, planners said.

Commission members acted after learning that the number of offices and shops in the booming Warner Center area will probably double in the next 25 years.

Promise Demanded

The ordinance will be in effect for up to two years to give city transportation experts time to decide how much money to assess projects under permanent regulations. During the interim period, developers starting projects must promise to pay whatever fee the city eventually decides, planners said.

Officials said the amount will depend upon the number of vehicle trips generated each day by the developers’ projects. The city’s first such assessment program, initiated a year ago for the Mar Vista area, levied a $2,010-per-trip fee.

A much higher fee--$10,000 a trip--was urged for Warner Center on Thursday by leaders of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization. That group has protested recent development proposals it contends will add to traffic congestion in the Warner Center area.

Daniel Garcia, chairman of the planning commission, quickly dismissed the homeowners’ proposal. But he acknowledged that some developers may object to signing what several have characterized as “blank checks” for the Transportation Department.

Valley-area transportation engineer Phillip Aker would not speculate what Warner Center developers may end up owing. “Having a future fee unspecified seems more appropriate to us right now than having a very preliminary, back-of-the-envelope fee,” Aker told commissioners.

No Immediate Effect

Planning staff member Marc Woersching said there are no construction projects on the horizon that will feel the immediate effects of the assessment, although developer Norman Kravetz has already agreed to pay the fee for a new hotel he is building on Canoga Avenue.

Counting the hotel and other office projects and shopping center expansions planned for the area, additional projects totaling about 9.2 million square feet are proposed for Warner Center, according to city planning department estimates. The largest development--some 3.7 million square feet of office space--has been proposed for a greenbelt area surrounding the Blue Cross building at Oxnard Street and Canoga Avenue.

So far, an area totaling about 11.5 million square feet has been developed in Warner Center, city statistics show.

Councilwoman Joy Picus, who represents Warner Center, said the city turned to developers for transportation funds to prevent the area from becoming choked by traffic. She and other council members will vote on the interim ordinance in about two months.