Project Puts ‘Cart’ Before the Plan : Development: Owners of disputed vacant lot turn to a French meeting tradition, <i> charrette, </i> to elicit community support.

Four years ago, Encino residents circulated petitions and protested at public hearings to successfully force a developer to scale back a commercial project planned for Ventura Boulevard at Hayvenhurst Avenue.

But that’s all tres passe .

The new owners of the still-vacant lot last week welcomed about 150 residents to a charrette --a meeting based on a French tradition, they said, that encourages community participation in designing projects.

“This is all part of finding out what the community wants,” said Robin Ackerman, president of Public Affairs Consulting Group, which is helping the property’s owner, Imperial Bank, reach out to the community. “That’s the whole idea of the charrette. “

The charrette harks back to turn-of-the-century Paris when architecture students were judged during their senior year on intricate renderings of proposed projects, according to Craig M. Kronenberg, an architect working with the bank.

Frantically putting the finishing touches on their drawings, the students would jump into the cart, or charrette, taking the work to the judges.

Because first-year students were pressed into service to help the seniors complete their projects, the word charrette came to represent a collaboration, Kronenberg said. “Now it means getting a whole community to jump on the cart,” he said.

It also means Imperial Bank, which foreclosed on the 5.8-acre property in December after the previous developers declared bankruptcy, is using the innovative approach to get approval for a future project from homeowners who battled previous plans for the land.

The bank is trying to sell the lot for more than $18 million, according to David Blitz, senior vice president of the bank. The bank plans to secure city permits for a proposed project that is yet to be determined to make the land more marketable to a developer, he said.

Although there are no firm plans as yet, the bank has expressed an interest in designing a project that would combine residential, retail or office uses, he said.

At the charrette last Wednesday, Encino residents presented the bank with a potpourri of suggestions that were scrawled by an architect on an easel at the front of the room.

“Please put something in there that’s cultural,” said Sally Mendelsohn, a 15-year resident of Encino who advocated a bookstore. “There’s enough glitz as there is.”

Others made pitches for projects that included a high-class hotel, a library and senior housing in a “Mediterranean piazza” style. Some clamored for more grass and less concrete, whatever type of development is settled on.

Some homeowners in attendance were more intent on raising concerns ranging from traffic to noise to odors that a project could generate. Even so, many at the meeting agreed that the charrette was a good first step by the bank.

“I was delighted at the way the bank appears to be approaching the problem,” said community activist Gerald A. Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino. “First they acknowledge that the homeowners have a good deal of clout and have to be listened to. I think that’s unique because in the past the developer of that site ignored the homeowners’ concern.”

In 1988, Encino homeowners fought a plan to build a 377,000-square-foot building with a six-screen theater on the 5.7-acre site. At the time, the proposal by Ventura Encino Ltd. met all zoning requirements.

But, working with City Councilman Marvin Braude, residents successfully urged the city to require an environmental study, thereby delaying the project more than a year. The developers downsized the development twice, but the lender eventually foreclosed on the property before anything was built.

Imperial Bank plans to evaluate the residents’ suggestions with its team of architects, engineers and public affairs consultants. Bank officials plan to sponsor another charrette in July to discuss project proposals that include residents’ suggestions.

The bank even has commissioned a team of artists to paint a mural of the history of Encino on a wooden fence that will soon replace the chain link one now surrounding the site. It is all part of the community outreach attitude.

“I would say that the development process more and more calls for doing this type of community involvement,” Blitz said of the charrette. “It’s just kind of a trend now in the development industry, at least for the more sophisticated developers, especially where you know the community’s had an ongoing interest.”