North Hills Expanding Even Before It’s a Reality : Communities: Granada Hills residents would rather join the new area than continue to be identified by the post office as part of Sepulveda.

It started with a group of Sepulveda residents who wanted to dissociate their neighborhood on the west side of the San Diego Freeway from the crime and poverty they say prevails on the east side by changing its name to North Hills.

Now, some residents of Granada Hills want to secede too--albeit reluctantly--and throw in with their neighbors in the would-be new community.

But what’s so bad about Granada Hills?

Well, nothing, residents say, as long as they are recognized as Granada Hills. But frequently their neighborhood, too, is called Sepulveda, a name they said has become synonymous with drug dealers and prostitutes.

The problem is that although the city of Los Angeles recognizes them as residents of Granada Hills, the U.S. Postal Service says they live in Sepulveda. City maps show the southern boundary of Granada Hills as Lassen Street. But in eyes of postal officials, the southern border of Granada Hills--ZIP code 91344--is Devonshire Street. South of Devonshire is Sepulveda--ZIP code 91343.

“We live in the twilight zone,” said Areg Gharabegian, who lives between Devonshire and Lassen near Woodley. Like others in the area, he said he would prefer to remain part of Granada Hills, but sees the name change to North Hills as the only way to eventually compel the post office to change its designation for the area.

Residents north and south of Lassen said they think that their new name will give them more negotiating power with postal officials, who so far have refused their requests for a ZIP code change.

“I prefer North Hills to Sepulveda, but if you give me a choice I would prefer to stay Granada Hills,” Gharabegian said.

But, said Howard Cohen, the coordinator of the Granada Hills portion of the petition drive, “We don’t want to be associated with the apartment dwellers and gangbangers” they think have given Sepulveda an unsavory reputation.

But whether carving out a new community would make any difference to the post office remains to be seen. Spokeswoman Ann Hanson said ZIP code changes require extensive studies and then are made only if the change would prove cheaper for the post office.

Short of a ZIP code change, Hanson said residents in the area can give their address as “North Hills, 91343,” but they risk delays because computers and people sorting letters may not always recognize the new community.

The Granada Hills residents began circulating petitions at a meeting Tuesday night. Ali Sar, press deputy for Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, said his boss will approve the name change if a majority of residents support it. At the meeting, attended by about 75 people, the vote was to proceed with the name change attempt after heated debate.

“I don’t care what we call ourselves as long as it’s not Sepulveda,” one member of the crowd shouted.

Bernson staff members are reviewing the 2,900 or so signatures collected since September by residents south of Lassen. Sar said the process may be completed by next week and if the signatures are valid Bernson will sign off on the name change. It may take another two months before street signs are erected to reflect the community’s new name.

Michael Ribons, a real estate agent who coordinated the original secession drive for residents south of Lassen, welcomed the Granada Hills residents. “Pretty soon the whole Valley will be North Hills,” he joked.

The original boundaries proposed for North Hills were Lassen on the north, the San Diego Freeway on the east, Roscoe Boulevard on the south and Bull Creek Wash on the west. The Granada Hills group now wants to include the area from Lassen north to Devonshire Street between the freeway and Balboa Boulevard.

The notable exception would be the North Hills shopping center on the southeast corner of Balboa and Devonshire. Cohen said owners of shops at the mall asked to be excluded from the name change so they could remain members of the Granada Hills Chamber of Commerce.

A representative of the Granada Hills Chamber of Commerce, Gil Benjamin, told the meeting Tuesday night that the chamber would neither support nor oppose the movement.