Car-Repair Shop Expansion OKd Despite Protests : Zoning: Residents of a North Hollywood area fail in their attempts to use a new law to drive the shop and others like it out of their neighborhood.

City zoning officials on Tuesday approved expansion of a North Hollywood auto-repair shop, dealing a blow to residential neighbors hoping to force the business and others nearby to move from the area.

The Los Angeles Board of Zoning Appeals voted unanimously to grant owner Wayne Durose a conditional use permit to expand his business at 11307 Burbank Blvd., provided that he met certain conditions.

Durose, who wants to knock down a 41-year-old garage and build a larger facility, must perform all work inside the new building, ensure that his customers’ cars are not illegally parked on residential side streets and close early on Saturdays. The board limited work at the shop to mechanical repairs and prohibited Durose from continuing to perform auto-body repairs, including spray-painting cars, which residents said releases fumes in the neighborhood.

“I reluctantly, with great misgivings, conclude we are better off” with the proposed development than with the older facility, where spray-painting and auto-body work was performed, said Joseph D. Mandel, board vice chairman.

But neighbors said they will appeal to the City Council, which has final say over the proposal. Residents said the proposal’s defeat would send a message to other business owners in the area to move out. About five residents testified Tuesday at the hearing, and the board received letters from several others.

They said they have complained for years about fumes and noise from the auto-body shops lining Burbank Boulevard between Lankershim Boulevard and Vineland Avenue and are taking advantage of a new city ordinance to contest Durose’s expansion.

The ordinance, passed in February to protect residential neighborhoods, requires public hearings on development proposals from auto-related businesses within 300 feet of residences.

“For the first time, we have a choice, and we want a better quality of living,” said Maria Fant, a longtime area resident. “There’s no fresh air to be had on Martha Street now, and the noise is unmerciful. If they allow the facility, we’ll have 10 times the problem.”

But board members said the proposal appeared to be an improvement over the existing business, which Durose wants to expand from 3,000 to about 5,000 square feet. Their action reversed a decision in August by Zoning Administrator Robert Janovici, who had sided with neighbors.

Since then, Durose has modified his proposal, agreeing to set the new building back five feet from residences and plant a landscape buffer, lower the building’s height to 19 feet, evict a tenant who had been cited for spray-painting outdoors in violation of the law and stop all auto-body work at the site.

Board Chairman James D. Leewong did not attend Tuesday’s meeting.