City OKs Colorado Boulevard Plan : Development: The project will limit building density and restrict location of billboards in the historic area. It also bans some businesses that attract traffic.

A long-awaited plan to upgrade development and help protect historic buildings along a scenic portion of Colorado Boulevard won unanimous approval from the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday, four years after it was introduced.

The Colorado Boulevard Specific Plan limits the height and density of future developments, restricts auto-related businesses, requires screening of unsightly businesses, places limits on signs, and sets standards for landscaping.

It also encourages development of a pedestrian core in the center portion of the boulevard where only low-density development will be allowed.

“In the long run, it will definitely help keep Colorado Boulevard a little more neighborhood friendly and eliminate some of what many consider to be the commercial blight,” said Steve Ciccarelli, a city planning associate for Los Angeles.

“I am very happy about it and very happy it’s resolved,” said Kathleen Aberman, president of the Eagle Rock Assn., which has been fighting for the plan. “It’s good to see the efforts of this community finally come to fruition.”

The plan also gained support from the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce, which has often been at odds with TERA over development proposals on Colorado Boulevard.

“I’m thrilled,” chamber President Bob Russel said. “Eagle Rock has been in a state of limbo since this entire process began. We’ve seen the deterioration on the boulevard and the surrounding area and this gives us the beginning of a long-range plan. Hopefully, we’ll be getting some high-profile, classy businesses and restaurants into the area.”

The plan affects the portion of Colorado Boulevard between the Glendale Freeway and Eagle Vista Drive. It bans a number of businesses that attract auto traffic, such as service stations, auto repair shops, and storage yards, motels and hotels. It also prohibits fast-food restaurants and mini-malls.

But the plan wasn’t a total victory for TERA, which compromised on one on its central concerns: the battle to keep out billboards that homeowners say obstruct views of the nearby hills.

“The original plan allowed no billboards, and that was one of the core issues,” said TERA member Jeff Samudio, who sits on an 11-member advisory committee of residents and business owners who wrote the agreement.

Samudio said pressure from out-of-district Councilman Nate Holden and the billboard industry led to a compromise that allows billboards on the higher-density western and eastern parts of Colorado Boulevard and bans them in the lower-density center portion.

The effort to create a specific plan for Colorado Boulevard started in 1987 after Aberman and other homeowners failed in an attempt to save several old commercial buildings from demolition to make way for a mini-mall.

“Out of that came the realization that some kind of ordinance (was needed) to protect the older buildings and to keep Colorado Boulevard from becoming one long strip mall,” Aberman said.

While the plan was being drafted, several more of Colorado Boulevard’s nearly two dozen older buildings dating from 1900 to the 1920s were torn down and replaced with a mini-mall.

The plan provides incentives called density bonuses to the owners of the remaining historic buildings to preserve them. An owner who refurbishes a historic building, rather than tearing it down to replace it with a larger building, can trade the unused density to a developer of another project.

“That’s a fair trade-off,” Samudio said. “You can get a higher density if you give something back to the community, and nobody had any objections to that.”

Samudio cautioned that the plan won’t result in any quick changes.

“With the economy the way it is, people won’t be seeing any changes soon,” Samudio said. “But this isn’t a planning document for the next two, three or 10 years. It’s a planning document for the next 100 years for Eagle Rock.”