Planners Urge Lower Fees for Warner Center Developers : Growth: Commissioners fear that high charges will hold back development. The money is used for street and transit improvements.

Arguing that high fees will stifle Warner Center development, Los Angeles planning commissioners on Thursday called for still more cuts in the amount developers would pay for street and transit improvements in the area.

The city “might as well not write a plan” for regulating development in Warner Center if the fees are as high as proposed by the city planning staff, Commissioner Suzette Neiman said.

Commissioners made their views known as planners revealed that they would not recommend cuts as deep as the commission seeks in fees to be levied under the Warner Center Specific Plan, now being drawn up by the city.

Planning staff members propose charging developers $10,000 for each peak-hour auto trip that their projects are calculated to create. Planners initially proposed a $15,000 per-trip fee, but cut it by one-third after commissioners objected last year.

Even a $10,000 fee will have a “chilling effect,” Commissioner Lydia Kennard said Thursday.

Commissioner Fernando Torres-Gil said he was very troubled that the fee was more than twice those levied under the city’s Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan, which some developers and city officials are now contesting as too high in a time of economic recession.

The commission then indicated the amount it regards as acceptable by voting 3 to 1 to impose a trip fee of $5,000 for now. The fee would apply under the interim ordinance that regulates growth in Warner Center until the permanent plan is approved.

If the final plan calls for higher fees, developers would pay the difference before being awarded occupancy permits.

The planning staff, however, showed little interest in changing its recommendation. The final proposal to the commission “will be in the neighborhood of $10,000,” Deputy Planning Director Robert Sutton said. “Five thousand dollars won’t cut it.”

The interim ordinance, which commissioners also recommended extending for one year, contains no trip fees. It does state that developers must agree to pay whatever amount is eventually set by the Warner Center Specific Plan.

Developers have complained that such language forces them to sign blank checks, and that in the current recessionary environment it is difficult to get financing for their projects if costs are unknown.

“What we’re asking the commission to recognize is that a blank check amounts to a moratorium,” said Lucinda Starrett, a lobbyist for several major Warner Center property owners.

Penny Flinn, who represented the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., asked commissioners to limit the fees to $5,000 per trip in the final plan.

Councilwoman Joy Picus said she was pleased that the commission voted to renew the interim-control ordinance, which now goes to the City Council for approval. “But I’m very disappointed that the commission ignored the advice of its staff on the fees,” she said.

If fees are not high enough, she warned, necessary traffic improvements will not be made.