Commission OKs 20-Year Plan to Limit Growth on Ventura Boulevard

The Los Angeles Planning Commission on Thursday formally endorsed a 20-year plan to control growth along Ventura Boulevard, saying that existing commercial property owners should help pay for traffic improvements to relieve traffic congestion caused by development.

The five-member panel voted unanimously for the plan after more than four hours of discussion and comments from homeowners and developers, who seemed divided on the proposal. But several members of both camps urged the commission not to delay approving the plan, which took more than three years to formulate.

“This plan is long overdue and balances all the affected interests--homeowners, merchants and developers,” Commission Vice President Theodore Stein Jr. said after the meeting. “While it may not be perfect, it’s fair and it’s equitable. If we worked on this plan for another year, we couldn’t make a better one.”

Senior City Planner Bob Sutton agreed. “We’re very pleased with the commission’s action,” he said. “They didn’t make any substantial changes.”

Although some applause greeted the commission’s approval, some homeowners and developers expressed dissatisfaction with the decision. Developer attorney Benjamin Reznik said the commission “rushed through” the plan without giving it proper consideration. “There are lots of loose ends in this,” he said. “It’s a patchwork plan.”

Fred Kramer of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. and Gerald Silver of Homeowners of Encino said the plan was not restrictive enough on development. “The way they’ve got it, developers can put tall buildings on top of three- to four-story parking structures,” Kramer said.

The plan now goes to the city attorney’s office for analysis before coming to the Los Angeles City Council for final consideration. The city attorney’s office will study the plan for about three or four months, officials said.

The plan would establish a limit of 8.6 million square feet of additional commercial development along the San Fernando Valley’s main 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 a day.

Under the proposed plan, about $42 million of the $200-million cost of proposed improvements would be divided among all commercial property owners along the boulevard, including developers of new projects. The fees to be assessed on developments are a critical element of the plan.

The city’s Planning Department had originally proposed last month to require developers of new projects to pay the entire cost of upgrading Ventura Boulevard to make it possible for it to handle more traffic without strain.

But that plan would have faced legal challenges, according to the city attorney’s office. Officials said that developers of new projects could only be assessed fees to mitigate the impact of traffic directly related to their buildings.

Planners said lowering the fees that had been proposed for new development leaves a gap in the funding of the needed traffic improvements. But, they said, they are looking for new sources of money and are confident they will be able to make up the difference.