City Begins Work on Growth Limits for Colorado Blvd.

Los Angeles city officials have begun work on a plan to limit growth along fast-developing Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock. But residents of the area fear that the restrictions will arrive too late.

At a meeting at Eagle Rock High School last Thursday, Councilman Richard Alatorre and Al Landini, senior city planner, told residents that the city is commited to limiting growth in the area.

“We don’t want to see on every block a doughnut store, we don’t want to see a video shop,” Alatorre said. “We want to see businesses that are wanted by the people who live there.”

The plan could take up to two years to develop. Meanwhile, the Eagle Rock Assn. said it will ask the City Council to pass a law immediately to restrict development.

Barbara Eckholm, association member, said the group supports development of a specific plan--which Alatorre is spearheading--but fears that its implementation may not come fast enough.

‘Completely Vulnerable’

“Right now, we as a community are completely vulnerable to unscrupulous development,” she said. “Just imagine what kind of development can take place without controls.”

The association is circulating a petition asking the city to pass an interim control ordinance, a measure to temporarily prohibit development of multi-unit dwellings, mini-malls, new auto services and motels along Colorado Boulevard from Eagledale Avenue on the west to Figueroa Street on the east, and along Eagle Rock Boulevard from Colorado to Verdugo Road.

The association will hold a meeting to rally support for the petition at the Eagle Rock Recreation Center at 7 tonight.

Alatorre said such an ordinance was “certainly one of the options that should be considered.”

Development along Colorado Boulevard has been controversial in recent years. Most of the boulevard is zoned for commercial and multi-unit development, but the streets directly behind it are zoned for residential use and are lined with old, well-kept homes. The owners of those homes have become increasingly worried about developers encroaching on them.

Early this year, the City Council voted to place a moratorium on the construction of mini-malls along Colorado between Eagledale Avenue on the west and Eagle Vista Drive on the east.