Traffic Portion of CRA’s Hollywood Renewal Plan Draws Fire : Redevelopment: Some residents say the plan is too vague. West Hollywood merchants say it will merely shove problems into their city.

The Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency’s newly released plans to deal with the revitalization of Hollywood Boulevard and the movie capital’s chronic traffic problems are encountering criticism from near and far.

Last week, several Hollywood residents told the agency’s Board of Commissioners that its proposals to deal with the transportation and urban design components of the CRA’s $922-million redevelopment effort are too vague and do not give enough attention to some of their specific concerns.

In addition, West Hollywood merchants and city officials have expressed concern that the CRA is trying to fix Hollywood’s traffic problems by dumping them into their city’s lap.

The comments by Hollywood residents--most of whom are activists already critical of the CRA--were made Thursday at the second of two public hearings on the proposals, officially known as the Hollywood Boulevard District Urban Design Plan and Hollywood Transportation Plan.

Once adopted, the urban design and transportation plans will become key elements in the redevelopment effort, CRA officials say. The public suggestions offered during the two hearings and in letters will be sent along with the proposals to the CRA board, and then to the City Planning Commission within about 60 days, said CRA spokesman Marc Littman.

After the city planners make suggestions, the plans will go back to the CRA board for approval, and ultimately the formal drafts will go back to the Los Angeles City Council for its final approval. Following the entire review and revision process, the plans are expected to be ready for adoption next year.

At Thursday’s hearing and in interviews afterward, several members of the now-defunct Hollywood Project Area Committee complained that the proposals fail to take into account many issues that they have been raising for years.

The committee, composed mostly of elected citizens, was the official advisory group for the CRA’s 30-year redevelopment effort until Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo replaced it last year, saying the group had become a “forum for wacky behavior.”

The Project Area Committee still meets, and has submitted several detailed criticisms of the two plans, saying they are too vague and do “not come anywhere near the required document . . . promised to the community.”

As a result, redevelopment “will continue to be attempted in a vague, shifting and confusing environment,” the group said in an open letter.

Doreet Hakman, a committee member who represents the new Hollywood Boulevard Community Council, told the board Thursday that the plans make unspecific promises about housing and parking, but leave out important details such as whether much-needed family housing would be included and exactly what kinds of parking could be provided.

“I don’t like the fact it has no teeth to it,” Hakman said. “The language is so vague.”

After the meeting, Hakman complained that by limiting public speakers to three minutes apiece, the CRA was sending the message that it cares little about input from local citizens and merchants.

“I feel that one more time, we the community have been left out,” said Hakman, who runs Snow White’s Coffee Shop on Hollywood Boulevard. “This plan has no specific language, no assurances that the community will get all the things we asked for during all those meetings we went to over the past few years.”

Aaron Epstein, a Hollywood businessman who belongs to the Project Area Committee and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, described his feelings about the proposals as mixed.

Epstein told the board that he continues to oppose the CRA policy of invoking eminent domain to displace tenants when rebuilding Hollywood. He also said Hollywood needs an underpass at the intersection of Franklin and Highland avenues to mitigate the already severe traffic problems.

“It would be terribly expensive,” he said, “but sometime it’ll have to be done. It should be incorporated into the (transportation) plan today.”

Some residents also have criticized the CRA’s plans to make Cahuenga Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue one-way streets to help mitigate the expected crush of traffic going through Hollywood once the renewal effort gets under way.

In behalf of merchants, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has expressed concern as well, saying the one-way streets could hurt business.

Others said the CRA needs to take a regional approach to transportation problems and cooperate with other city, county and state transportation and planning agencies.

In a letter to the CRA, Hollywood resident William Flatley said: “Sick transit systems won’t be made healthy by Metro Rail; sicker highway problems won’t be cured by adding another lane to Franklin Avenue. Local transportation plans are certainly important; regional solutions are imperative.”

West Hollywood officials, residents and merchants also have criticized the CRA for failing to take a more regional outlook.

West Hollywood’s transportation manager, Lucy Dyka, said in a letter to CRA Chairman Jim Wood that there are inconsistencies between the CRA’s transportation plan and other regional plans such as the Air Quality Management Plan, Regional Mobility Plan and Congestion Management Plan being formulated by state and county officials.

Dyka also said the CRA “should consider whether its proposals will be consistent” with recommendations from the Tri-Cities Transportation Improvement Project, a joint undertaking by the cities of Beverly Hills, Los Angeles and West Hollywood.

Owners of several West Hollywood restaurants on and near Santa Monica Boulevard also have complained to Wood that the CRA’s idea of mitigating transportation is to send it all west, across the border into West Hollywood.

“The plan to improve the situation in Hollywood requires dumping the problems into West Hollywood,” restaurateur Mary Sweeney said in a letter to the CRA.

West Hollywood officials are primarily concerned with the CRA’s plans to widen Santa Monica Boulevard and turn it into a “super street” in which large volumes of traffic would be allowed to flow east and west by limiting turns off the road and synchronizing traffic signals.

Some of those efforts already have been downgraded due to concerns expressed by West Hollywood leaders, said Donald Spivack, the CRA’s operations director overseeing the Hollywood project.

“But they are still concerned,” Spivack said, “so we’ll have to sit down with the (Los Angeles) city traffic department, the state and West Hollywood officials and investigate what options might be possible to meet the traffic requirements of both communities.”

Major components of the draft transportation plan include upgrading roads, improving traffic flow while mitigating its effects on neighborhoods, expanding and improving public transit and reducing the adverse effects of proposed Metro Rail subway construction.