Residential Swim School Given Permit Extension : Zoning: Neither side in the two-year Valley Village dispute is satisfied with the decision. The owner says he will be forced out of business.

Los Angeles zoning officials have granted permission for a children’s swimming school to continue operating in a Valley Village residential neighborhood into the summer of 1993, satisfying neither side in a two-year neighborhood dispute.

The school’s owner complained that the decision by the Board of Zoning Appeals this week--extending the school’s conditional use permit but requiring him to apply for a new permit after that--will probably put him out of business in his present location.

Neighbors said they were disappointed that the board failed to uphold a zoning administrator’s ruling in September that would have terminated the school’s permit immediately. They complained that the outdoor school is noisy and brings excessive traffic into their residential neighborhood.

Jim Herrick, owner of the Jim Herrick Swimming School in the 11800 block of Kling Street, called the board’s action Tuesday an unfair surprise.

“I’m not real happy,” he said. By refusing his request to extend the permit indefinitely, “they’re telling me that I have to close.”

Lori Dinkin, co-president of the Valley Village Homeowners Assn., one of the groups that opposed the granting of a permit, was also displeased.

“We’re not happy about it, but we have to go along with it,” she said. “We stand again with our statement that we oppose any commercial undertaking in a residential zone. This type of undertaking is horrendous.”

At a September hearing on the school’s permit, officials of the Valley Village Homeowners Assn. and others argued that the school was noisy and out of place in their residential neighborhood, saying that “granting permission for this operation sets a very dangerous precedent.”

But Herrick and his supporters deny that the school is noisy and contend that it is needed to reduce the number of children who drown in back-yard pools each year.

Drowning is the leading cause of death for children 4 years old or younger in Los Angeles County, according to county health officials.

“What I do is prevent a catastrophe from happening,” said Herrick, whose school enrolls mostly children under age 5.

The swim school does not bring in enough money to pay rent in a commercial zone, he said.

Associate Zoning Administrator Andrew B. Sincosky ruled in September that the school was out of place at its current site and denied Herrick’s request to extend the school’s conditional use permit.

Herrick appealed the zoning administrator’s decision to the Board of Zoning Appeals, which gave him a reprieve until the summer of 1993. “The general feeling of the board was they wanted to give him an opportunity to relocate rather than shutting down immediately,” City Planner Anne Howell said.

Herrick said he is unsure whether he will apply for a new permit in 1993.

The swimming instructor has been through the lengthy permit process before. After operating for about three years without a permit, Herrick applied for a conditional use permit in 1990, zoning officials said.

A city zoning administrator denied the request, but Herrick appealed to the Board of Zoning Appeals, which overturned the zoning administrator’s request and approved the permit. Neighbors then appealed to the City Council, which also ruled in Herrick’s favor.

Opponents of the school say the controversy is far from over. “This is not the last thing,” Dinkin said. “We plan to look into this further. What worries me is, in a year and a half he will go back and do the same thing.”