Big Project Jolts Encino Residents : Shopping Mall Plans to Skirt Controls by Going Underground

Stunned Encino residents have learned that a six-level, two-block-long enclosed shopping mall may soon be built near their homes without Los Angeles officials requiring a single public hearing.

Because the carefully designed, $100-million mall will primarily be built underground, it apparently will meet strict Encino building controls without needing any discretionary waivers, city officials said Thursday.

Developers planning the project north of Ventura Boulevard between Hayvenhurst and Libbit avenues have pledged to meet with homeowners, however.

Four floors of the shopping center, including a three-level, 2,000-car parking lot, will be built underground, the developers said.

The two upper shopping levels will extend 45 feet above the ground. A landscaped buffer zone will separate the two upper levels from Ventura Boulevard and Hayvenhurst Avenue and from 15 houses on the north side of the project, the developers said.

“We’re within all the ordinances,” said Ron Rosen, a representative of the Puma Development Co. of West Hollywood.

As soon as escrow on the site closes this summer, “We’ll apply for a building permit. . . . We should start work in between six and 15 months,” said Henry S. Stone, a partner in the project. Construction will take about 18 months, he said.

Aides to City Councilman Marvin Braude who have met with the developers agreed that project approval could be automatic, avoiding a public-hearing process.

“They’d be following all the requirements that the city imposes, which are pretty severe,” said Brad Rosenheim, an aide to Braude.

The 375,000-square-foot project would be Encino’s largest retail facility, although the community’s Ventura Boulevard is lined with high-rise office buildings containing much greater floor space.

The mall would be similar in design but smaller than the Sherman Oaks Galleria about a mile to the east. That 7-year-old center has 510,000 square feet and 3,500 parking spaces in an above-ground garage, which also serves a high-rise office building.

The proliferation of such high-rises has prompted complaints from homeowners about a loss of privacy, congestion on the boulevard and parking woes on residential streets.

The city has reacted by imposing moratoriums that have limited the height of new buildings to three stories and restricted their proximity to residential lots. Officials also have established new formulas for determining the size of parking lots.

Rosen said his project’s free underground parking lot, its distance from adjoining single-family residential lots and its overall low-rise design puts it in compliance with all city rules. He said the company also has agreed to sign what he described as “a blank check” for the city to help pay the project’s future share of boulevard-improvement work.

Members of Homeowners of Encino, who met Wednesday night with Rosen, Stone and project architect Chris Cedergreen, were dismayed to learn that they will not automatically have a voice in the project.

“Since there’s no request by them for exemptions, we don’t know how much control we have,” said Gerald Silver, president of the group. “We don’t have much bargaining power, let’s be honest.”

Residents urged the developers to keep shoppers’ cars out of their neighborhood and to make a special effort to protect the 15 houses next to the site on Moorpark Street.

“Be a hero and spend $5 million and buy those poor people out,” said Jerome S. Alch, who lives a few blocks from the Puma site. His home is a block from the six-story Encino Terrace Center, locally known as the Fujita Building.

Alch told Rosen that nine homeowners living in the shadow of the Fujita Building eventually sold their homes for a parking lot. He urged the Puma Development Co. to buy the 15 homes next to its site, then build a landscaped park there and donate it to the city.

Those living close to the mall site were pessimistic about the future of their neighborhood.

“I know we can’t stop this thing,” said homeowner Steve Godman.

Hank Kasselik, who lives on Moorpark Street immediately behind the project site, told the developers: “It’s not your fault that we’re paying the price of 20 years of poor planning and have to suffer.”

The commercially zoned site is occupied by Terry York Chevrolet. The lot will close “when we run out of cars” in a few months, dealership general manager Dennis Marth said Thursday.

The Puma firm’s project is the second shopping center proposed for the site in a year.

Earlier, builder Jay Hofstadter of Sherman Oaks sought to build an upscale retail center there. He said Thursday that he scrapped that plan last July when he learned that he might have to pay $6.5 million to the city as his project’s share of Ventura Boulevard improvements.

Rosen and Stone said they hope to include a six-screen movie theater and a market in their project.