Both Sides Attack Plan for Ventura Blvd. Growth

A plan for regulating growth along Ventura Boulevard, released Monday by Los Angeles city planners, drew fire from developers and slow-growth advocates alike as it endorsed ceilings on growth and traffic identical to those proposed last August by a citizens group.

Even with those lids, the amount of commercial space along the boulevard--often called the San Fernando Valley’s Main Street--would be allowed to increase by 44%. The flip side is that developers would be required to pay hefty fees to help relieve traffic congestion created by their new projects.

“It’s going to bring development to a quick halt,” said Ben Reznik, a land use attorney who represents several developers with large commercial projects along the 17-mile boulevard. The proposed plan would require developers to pay between $3,800 and $7,600 for each additional auto trip per day generated by their projects, depending on where along the boulevard they are located.

But Fred Kramer, vice president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., said the proposal by the city Planning Department would encourage office construction and eventually destroy the boulevard’s remaining low-rise, neighborhood-serving stores. “It will force the consumer to drive three to five miles to get gas, to get groceries,” he said.

Reznik and Kramer agreed that the plan would encourage office construction, because offices generate proportionally fewer auto trips than do retail stores.

The comprehensive plan for the boulevard has been three years in the making.

A 19-member citizens advisory committee, appointed by the six Los Angeles City Council members whose districts are crossed by the boulevard, issued its growth-control recommendations last August. The proposal unveiled Monday leaves key features of those recommendations intact:

* A limit of 8.6 million square feet of additional commercial growth. Currently Ventura Boulevard has about 19 million square feet of commercial space.

* A limit of 30,000 additional automobile trips per day along the boulevard. Transportation analysts estimate that motorists currently make 70,000 trips daily.

The size of individual new projects would be partly set by the amount of traffic they generate. Office projects, for example, generate far less daily traffic than retail projects and thus could be larger.

Bob Sutton, a senior city planning official, emphasized Monday in a presentation to about 30 community leaders in Studio City that the recommendations of his department coincided with those of the citizens group on the two key growth limits.

Sutton also heatedly denied reports that his staff had delayed release of its proposal in order to give developers additional time to build their projects without the proposed limits.

Still, it may be months before a final plan is adopted. The proposal now goes to the city’s five-member Planning Commission, which will make a recommendation to the City Council. The commission is set to begin reviewing the proposal at a Feb. 22 public meeting.

One city planner, who asked not to be named, said the opposition to the plan from both sides in the development debate indicated that it was on target.