Woo Wants Growth Plan for Ventura Boulevard to Be Tougher on Developers

Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo on Tuesday restated his ideas for making a growth-control plan for Ventura Boulevard tougher on developers as the council’s planning committee delayed for another week a public hearing on the massive and complex plan.

Woo said he wants the Ventura Boulevard specific plan, the long-awaited strategy for limiting commercial development along the thoroughfare known as the San Fernando Valley’s “Main Street,” to grant far greater power to the city’s Department of Transportation to scale down projects.

Under the proposed plan, DOT is authorized to reduce individual projects if it finds that 12 out of 30 critical intersections along the boulevard have reached so-called “F-levels” of traffic congestion.

Transit planners use a rating scale to categorize congestion levels; F, the worst level, describes congestion at an intersection that’s so bad it affects adjoining intersections.

Woo said he was unhappy with the plan’s current proposed grant of authority to DOT planners.

For example, Woo may want DOT empowered to cut development if fewer intersections are gridlocked, said Eric Roth, a top aide to Woo, who represents parts of Sherman Oaks and Studio City.

Additionally, Woo said during Tuesday’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee meeting that he wants a moratorium on the issuance of any building permits within the Ventura Boulevard corridor for a period of 90 days after the council approves the specific plan.

Such a ban would give city planning and building officials time to become fully acquainted with the intricacies of the plan.

Woo has previously expressed concern that the plan might be so difficult to interpret that city officials might mistakenly grant developers building allowances exceeding what is actually permitted.

Woo, who sits on the planning committee, has previously endorsed these two ideas for strengthening the plan.

No vote was taken on either of Woo’s proposals, and none is expected until next week at the earliest.

The carry-over for another week of the committee’s consideration of the plan was urged by the city attorney’s office, which reported that only three of the seven city departments that were asked to comment on the plan had done so.

Councilman Hal Bernson, committee chairman, said the city attorney’s office should warn the non-responsive departments that if they do not provide their comments by the next meeting their silence would be interpreted as approval of the plan.