Neighbors Voice Fears Over Work-Furlough Plan : Studio City: A proposal to turn the Ventura Retirement Villa into a probation facility brings opposition at hearing.

Studio City residents told a city planning official Monday that they feared the effects of a proposal to convert a retirement home into a work-furlough facility for nonviolent lawbreakers, despite assurances that inmates would be carefully monitored and not allowed in the neighborhood.

“I can’t help but feel that despite what has been said, these people will be a threat to the community,” said Jean Ferdman of Sunshine Terrace.

“The program may have merit but it is definitely, definitely in the wrong place,” said her husband, Benjamin.

About 20 residents and business leaders attended the hearing Monday at the Van Nuys Woman’s Club, where an examiner for the city Planning Commission listened to opposing sides discuss a plan to convert the Ventura Retirement Villa into a work-furlough facility for the Los Angeles County Probation Department.

Hearing Examiner Richard M. Takase said he would issue his recommendation to the Planning Commission in the next two to three weeks. He said his recommendation will be considered at the Planning Commission’s Sept. 27 meeting.

Planning Commission approval is required for the conditional-use permit requested by Working Alternatives, a private Long Beach-based firm that is proposing to run the work-furlough program for the county. But Takase said the Planning Commission’s decision may be appealed to the City Council.

Under Working Alternatives’ plan, the 146-bed board and care facility for the aged would instead house drunk drivers, forgers and other nonviolent lawbreakers who would be able to continue working while serving their jail sentences.

The offenders would have to be selected by a judge and screened by the county Probation Department before they could participate in the program. Participants would leave the facility at 11201 Ventura Blvd. only for their jobs or schooling and would face routine testing for drug and alcohol use, said Carl E. Curtis, director of the department’s work-furlough program.

Curtis testified that the Studio City facility would help free Los Angeles County Jail cells for predatory offenders and enable those convicted of nonviolent crimes to continue supporting their families and paying taxes. It would be the county’s second privately run work-furlough program and one of several it plans to eventually establish to relieve jail crowding, Curtis said.

But businessmen and residents expressed fear not only about the facility, but questioned whether the retirement home’s 46 parking spaces would be enough for the work-furlough program’s commuting inmates and staff. A spokeswoman for Councilman John Ferraro said he would oppose the plan because of the number of concerned phone calls and letters that have been received by his office.