Council Members Get Bernson’s-Eye View of District During Tour

Councilman Hal Bernson took seven council colleagues on a field trip through the north San Fernando Valley Thursday, showing them good, bad and controversial venues in his district.

The council members and several city department heads settled in big tour bus seats and listened to Bernson, with microphone in hand, explain his position on issues such as the Porter Ranch development area and the Bryant Street-Vanalden Avenue neighborhood redevelopment.

For several council members, the daylong tour was the first time they had seen the controversial projects, which they have either voted on in the past or will make critical decisions about in the future.

“No one’s offered me a tour like this before,” said Ruth Galanter, a first-term councilwoman who represents Westchester, Venice and Crenshaw communities. “This is important because we each represent districts that are so different, but the problems such as traffic and development are generic throughout the city.”

One of the longest stops was at Porter Ranch, where a plan to develop the pristine rolling hills into a major $2-billion residential and commercial city center is at the forefront of public debate.

The Los Angeles city Planning Commission is scheduled to consider the master plan for the 1,300-acre Chatsworth site May 11. The development plan will go next to the council’s Planning and Environment Committee, which Bernson chairs, and then to the full City Council.

Endorses Plan

Standing before his colleagues, Bernson endorsed the plan as “in balance and reasonable,” adding that he supports a 20% cut in the project’s commercial area from 7.5 million square feet to about 6 million.

Beverly Hills developer Nathan Shapell also is seeking to build 2,195 single-family houses and 800 condominiums on the site over the next 20 years.

“The biggest crime will be to allow this to be developed piecemeal,” Bernson said.

Galanter and Councilman Michael Woo, another tour participant, are both members of the council’s powerful Planning and Environment Committee. Neither had seen the site before. They said they have not yet studied the plan in detail.

Galanter, an environmentalist who was elected on a wave of slow-growth sentiment, said that evaluating the Porter Ranch plan “will be a challenge. I was standing there trying to imagine those hills covered with buildings.”

After viewing the site, Woo said it is enormous.

“I had no sense of it before this,” he said.

Lunch was served at the lavish Mediterranean-style mansion of Ray Mulokas, president of the 60-home Monteria Estates Assn. and a member of Bernson’s citizen advisory committee on the Porter Ranch development proposal. The committee has endorsed the proposal.

During the tour, Bernson said mini-malls and corner businesses with tiny parking lots are bad. One venue on his “Points of Interest” map was the hamburger stand at Balboa Boulevard and Lassen Street.

“Unfortunately, this is extremely popular,” Bernson said, “Traffic backs up all along Balboa.”

When the entourage stopped to walk through the Bryant-Vanalden neighborhood in Northridge, the city’s largest housing rehabilitation project, Bernson heaped praise on his efforts that transformed “some of the worst slums in L.A.” into an “ornate gated community.”

Council members walked through vacant and occupied units that were newly renovated and through a vandalized unit.

They were not shown an example of one of the 160 units that the city Community Development Department cited two months ago for slum-like conditions. The city ordered the developer, Devinder (Dave) Vadehra, to repair the units, or the city will do so at his expense.

Ralph Esparza, Community Development Department housing director, said his office is inspecting the units and preparing a final audit of the project.

The tour was not unique. In 1981, council members took monthly tours to different districts. Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, whose district stretches from San Pedro to Watts, said that was the last time she had journeyed to the opposite end of the city.

“So much comes before the council, it’s good when you can at least visualize some of the places,” Flores said.

Also attending the tour were council members Joel Wachs, Joy Picus, John Ferraro and Marvin Braude.