Plan Shifts Cost of Ventura Blvd. Work to Landowners

Los Angeles city planners proposed Monday that developers of new projects on Ventura Boulevard pay a smaller share of the $200-million-plus price tag for improving traffic conditions, shifting the balance to existing commercial property owners.

Senior City Planner Bob Sutton said the fees the Planning Department originally proposed last month, as part of an overall plan to control growth along Ventura Boulevard, had to be sharply revised because they would have faced legal challenges.

The first system called for developers to pay the entire cost of upgrading Ventura Boulevard to make it possible for it to handle more traffic without strain.

But in a report released Monday, city planners concluded that all property owners should bear some financial responsibility for improvements. Sutton said the city attorney’s office had warned that new developers could only be assessed fees to mitigate traffic impacts directly related to their projects.

Business owners frowned on the proposed assessment district.

“We have trouble now collecting rents, and we’re not going to be happy at all with another assessment,” said Hy Termin, who owns the 10-shop Sherman Oaks Village Shopping center. “That cost will have to be passed on to our tenants, who are already screaming that rents are too high,” he said.

Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino, said the proposed assessment district would not work without a moratorium on all construction. “There still needs to be a halt on construction until the funding mechanism for the improvements is worked out,” Silver said.

While some homeowners and property owners along the boulevard pondered the plan’s revisions Monday, a group of developers and business owners urged City Council members and their representatives to adopt the specific plan as soon as possible.

“The plan is not perfect, but no plan ever is,” said developer Michael Zugsmith, who was a member of the citizens advisory committee that drew up the original proposal. “But the plan should be approved now. We all have individual reservations about the plan, but there are mechanisms to change it once it’s in place. To delay it any more would be a joke.”

The fees to be assessed on developments are a critical element of the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan, which will be reviewed by the city’s Planning Commission on Thursday. The plan also must be considered by the City Council.

Planning officials also recommended a revision that would exempt developers from paying the traffic impact fees if they build pedestrian-oriented retail stores on the ground floors of their projects.

Sutton said the revision was prompted by homeowners who want to encourage neighborhood businesses. They had complained that the heavy fees proposed in the earlier version of the specific plan would make neighborhood-oriented retail developments economically unfeasible and would lead to even greater pressure to build office projects. The plan would establish a ceiling of 8.6 million square feet of additional commercial construction along the San Fernando Valley’s major artery. That much new development would produce about 30,000 extra auto trips per hour during the afternoon rush-hour.

The existing 19 million square feet of commercial development along Ventura Boulevard generates about 70,000 auto trips per hour.

Traffic planners predict it will be possible to add 30,000 vehicle trips to the boulevard without worsening current traffic conditions--but only if the city spends about $200 million on traffic improvement projects.

The projects needed to prevent gridlock on Ventura Boulevard include widening 30 intersections to permit new right- and left-turn lanes and installing a computerized traffic signal system.

Originally, the specific plan called for developers to pay an average fee of about $5,800 for each additional auto trip on Ventura Boulevard generated by their projects. But Monday’s report recommended an average fee of $3,600.

The fee system also calls for $42 million of the cost of the traffic improvements to be spread out over all commercial property owners along the length of the 17-mile boulevard.

Setting up a benefit assessment district, which would allow collection of that money, would require a two-thirds vote of the 15-member City Council. That action, however, could be blocked by a majority of the affected property owners.

If a benefit assessment district were not established, growth along the boulevard would have to be restricted to far less than the 8.6 million square feet of development contemplated under the current proposal, Sutton said.

Richard Close of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. said he welcomed the changes in the plan. “They’re just what we need to preserve our community,” Close said, referring to the emphasis on the development of pedestrian retail areas.

“Having that kind of development answers our needs because we can’t widen Ventura,” he said. “Now there’s some innovation to solving these problems rather than erecting large parking lots and offices.”