Revised Plan for Downtown Reseda Draws Mixed Reviews

Reseda residents and merchants reacted with mixed emotions Tuesday to the latest city plan to revitalize the community’s commercial district, which allows new auto-related businesses in most of the area and prohibits residential development.

“We’re a lot happier with it than we were,” said Jerry Blaz, a bookstore owner. “If we hadn’t stood up on our back legs and organized and protested, it would have been the ruination of the entire community.”

But Peter Ireland, a spokesman for the Reseda Community Assn., said the plan “has a long way to go. We support a two-story limit” instead of the three stories allowed for new buildings under the proposed plan.

People who own land on Baird Avenue between Vanowen and Gault streets protested against the city’s plan to change the zoning in their area to reduce population density. “We will be deprived of developing our property,” said Iulian Georgescu.

They were among more than 200 people who attended a hearing Tuesday night on the latest version of the city’s plan to guide development and improve Reseda’s image. The Los Angeles City Planning Commission will review the plan next month.

The calm atmosphere of the meeting differed sharply from hearings in July and August, when residents and merchants heckled and booed earlier revitalization plans. In response to the overwhelming opposition, the Planning Commission told its staff in August to re-evaluate nearly every aspect of the proposal.

“This is a big improvement over the plan originally suggested,” said Helen Minton, who owns property in the area.

Under the previous plan, developers would have been allowed to build apartments above retail stores to provide affordable housing. But merchants and residents argued that affordable housing exists in residential parts of Reseda and that allowing it in the business district would attract low-income tenants who would commit crimes. The new plan prohibits residential development in commercially zoned areas of the district.

Under the previous plan, certain activities--such as car repair shops, trade schools, universities and secondhand stores--would have been prohibited from locating or expanding in the area in an attempt to improve its run-down appearance. Operators of new businesses would have been required to set aside property for pedestrian walkways and landscaped courtyards.

The new plan eliminates the requirement to install the landscaped plazas and allows uses that were previously prohibited, such as schools and universities, taxidermists and video rental stores.

The previous plan prohibited expanding or establishing new auto-related businesses anywhere in the district. The new plan requires auto-related businesses, which now represent at least 20% of the total commercial uses in the area, to get conditional-use permits from the city to expand or establish new outlets in most of the district.

However, in an effort to encourage pedestrian traffic, it prohibits most new auto-related businesses in a zone beginning at Amigo Avenue and Sherman Way and extending east along Sherman Way to Lindley Avenue.

“Basically, this plan is a lot fairer to us,” said Tom Hilburn, who owns an auto upholstery shop and helped form the Community Organization of Reseda, or CORE, which heavily lobbied city planners to amend the previous plan.

Some business operators took issue with a ban on rooftop signs in the pedestrian zone.

Others said a ban on new pole signs and billboards was unfair. “Our visibility would really be limited,” said Jeff Lambert, representing Valley Management Co., which operates a McDonald’s in the district. Under the new plan, existing pole signs and billboards would have to be removed within five years, provided that the city compensates the owners.

The new plan would eliminate a proposed ban on parking on Reseda Boulevard and Sherman Way. But Blaz and others said they worry that city planners may yet recommend such a ban to the city’s Transportation Department. “It’s crucial that we don’t wake up someday to find parking in front of our businesses gone,” Blaz said.