Panel OKs Ventura Blvd. Building Limits

A long-awaited plan to limit future commercial projects on Ventura Boulevard was approved Tuesday by a key Los Angeles City Council panel, despite complaints from developers and homeowners that the plan was unsatisfactory.

Nevertheless, Councilman Hal Bernson, chairman of the council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee, predicted that the Ventura Boulevard specific plan will win final council approval. His committee approved the plan 3 to 0.

The plan, which limits the size of future high-rise office developments, would encourage construction of smaller buildings that would be more inviting to shoppers and pedestrians, Bernson predicted.

Fred Kramer, a member of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., which had pushed for stronger building controls, said that although the plan is “a disappointment” in some aspects, it is preferable to no plan. He urged swift adoption.

Gordon Murley, head of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., and Gerald A. Silver, head of Homeowners of Encino, attacked the several exemptions to the plan granted by the committee.

One allows for construction of a 315,000-square-foot project by Goldrich-Kest Co. at Hayvenhurst Avenue and Ventura Boulevard. Another permits two medium-rise office towers to be built at Topanga Canyon and Ventura boulevards.

Benjamin M. Reznik, an attorney for several major builders along Ventura Boulevard, complained that developers will race to put up projects to beat the plan’s final cap on construction.

He also opposed provisions that would bar new banks, restaurants and ice cream parlors along “great stretches” of the boulevard.

The plan limits future commercial growth to create no more than 30,000 new auto trips during afternoon rush hours. This would represent a 44% increase from the 70,000 trips now generated by existing development. City officials have said the plan would allow a maximum of 8.6 million square feet of additional office and commercial space.

Under the plan, future developers will be required to pay the city from $2,439 to $4,038 for each new trip their project generates. Also assessed at the same rates will be projects built after Nov. 9, 1985, when an interim control law was approved by the council to limit growth while the plan was being drafted.

The fees are projected to generate a $150-million traffic fund to add lanes to Ventura Boulevard. The planners have said the traffic improvements will ensure that the additional development will not aggravate the existing traffic congestion along the boulevard.