Council Proposes Traffic Fee Relief

The Los Angeles City Council’s planning panel Tuesday recommended that a plan be prepared to give Ventura Boulevard property owners relief in paying a total of $16 million in traffic impact fees mandated by a 1990 growth-control plan.

Although the council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee gave no direction to city staff about what kind of relief to grant, the Department of Transportation has proposed a draft ordinance that would give affected property owners five years to pay the fees.

Under the existing Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan, the owners must pay in two years. In recent months, as the first bills have gone out, property owners have begun complaining and hiring attorneys and lobbyists to help win some relief.

The owners claim that they need relief because they are already being hurt by the recession.

Under the Specific Plan, the fees are to be used by the city to fund massive traffic improvements along Ventura Boulevard to mitigate the effect of new development along the popular commercial strip.

If approved, the relief measure would help about 170 developers who built on Ventura Boulevard between 1985 and enactment of the Specific Plan. The developers agreed under an interim ordinance to pay whatever traffic impact fees were eventually adopted by the plan.

The city billed the developers for about $16 million in fees.