Charges by Yaroslavsky Draw Denials : Ventura Boulevard: Planners say they aren’t stalling a plan to curb growth but have been buried by public comments.

Los Angeles city planning officials on Thursday denied accusations by Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky that city planners and developers were using stall tactics to delay a plan to control Ventura Boulevard growth.

Dick Platkin, project manager of the proposal for the Planning Department, said there was no evidence of deliberate stalling. He said city staff has needed extra time to analyze an avalanche of public comments on the proposal.

Los Angeles Planning Commission President William Luddy said Yaroslavsky never contacted planning officials with his concerns about the plan being intentionally delayed. “If there had been one phone call, everything would have been explained to him,” Luddy said. “All this posturing could have been put aside. The plan is going ahead as fast as possible.”

Yaroslavsky’s remarks also drew responses from homeowner leaders elsewhere in his district, who said they doubted his sincerity on the issue, and from Councilman Michael Woo, who agreed with Yaroslavsky.

The plan calls for building restrictions and traffic improvements along a 17-mile stretch of Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Tarzana and Woodland Hills.

Speaking at a packed Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. meeting Wednesday, Yaroslavsky declared that he would try to block all development on the boulevard if the proposal did not reach the five-member Planning Commission by the end of February.

Yaroslavsky, whose district includes just a small portion of the southern San Fernando Valley, said he was outraged that scheduled commission hearings on the plan had been postponed twice.

The commission was supposed to hear the plan in November. That hearing was first delayed until this month. City planning officials then asked for another extension until Feb. 22.

“I don’t want to do a moratorium,” Yaroslavsky said as the audience of about 250 applauded. “I don’t want to have to resort to radical steps, but I will respond to radical stall tactics.”

Platkin said officials received extensive comments on the plan from homeowners and business owners.

“It has taken about 40 to 50 pages just to respond to all the comments raised,” he said. “That’s the reason we have citizen participation--to find defects and internal contradictions on what we’ve done. Sometimes it takes a lot of thought and work to rectify.”

Luddy said he approved the postponements. “We want the staff to consider as full a report as we can,” he said. “There’s no advantage in considering a half-finished report.”

But Woo, who represents part of the boulevard east of Yaroslavsky’s district, said he agreed with the ultimatum. Woo has scheduled a meeting with Planning Department Director Kenneth Topping to apply pressure on moving the plan along quickly, said a spokesperson for Woo’s office.

“Michael wants to bring all the pressure that Ken Topping can bear,” the spokesperson said. “He feels that the threat of a moratorium might be an effective motivator.”

Elsewhere in Yaroslavsky’s district, however, homeowner leaders said they doubted the councilman’s sincerity as a champion of neighborhood interests.

“Believe me, if he really wanted that report done and before the commission, he could do it tomorrow,” said Sandy Brown, leader of Friends of Westwood.

Harald Hahn, of the Burton Way Homeowners Organization, near West Hollywood, said Yaroslavsky favored developers over homeowners, and that the ultimatum was an empty threat. “His credibility is at a low ebb with homeowners,” he said.