Neighbors Praise, Criticize High-Rise Proposal for Van Nuys Blvd.

Van Nuys residents and community leaders voiced compliments and complaints to the Los Angeles Planning Commission on Thursday about a plan to transform Van Nuys Boulevard into a bustling business district with high-rises and fashionable shopping areas.

The proposal was prepared by a team of urban designers during a 6-day workshop in October under a grant to the city from the National Endowment for the Arts. It calls for several high-rise offices and an expanded pedestrian mall with outdoor cafes and landscaped parkways on Van Nuys between Vanowen and Oxnard streets.

The report also calls for higher density developments south of Victory Boulevard and creation of a “commercial core” around government buildings.

In their first opportunity to publicly comment on the proposal, 15 Van Nuys residents told planning commissioners they were pleased with portions of the plan that would encourage, through new zoning ordinances, the development of more retail stores, restaurants and business offices.

However, most speakers were opposed to high-rise offices along Van Nuys Boulevard, predicting increased traffic on an already congested thoroughfare and towering buildings casting shadows over nearby single-family homes.

“We don’t want to see another Ventura Boulevard in Van Nuys,” said Don Shultz, a Van Nuys Homeowners Assn. representative. “We want to see the area improved, but we don’t want overdevelopment in such a compact area.”

The designers’ suggestions, compiled in a report called “Vision Van Nuys,” will be used as a source of ideas and information when city planners begin this year to revise the Van Nuys specific plan--a blueprint for community development.

In the 2 months since it was released, the report has stirred communitywide discussion about how city planners should map the future of Van Nuys.

“This mechanism has gotten ideas out in a more comprehensible way than we could do,” said William G. Luddy, commission president. “It’s gotten people focused with a new energy.”

Flip Smith, Van Nuys Chamber of Commerce president, praised development of a restaurant area that will encourage evening visitors to Van Nuys.

Conrad Mazzarini, a chamber member and commercial real estate agent, said downtown Van Nuys potentially could become a successful business district because high prices are pushing office tenants off Ventura Boulevard.

City planners will begin the long and detailed process of redrawing the specific plan for downtown Van Nuys through public meetings and conferences with smaller community groups.

“I’ve seen Van Nuys steadily deteriorate in the past 40 years,” homeowner Martin Lassar told the commission. “What we want you to know now is that we are going to get involved in this process to change things.”