‘Main St.’ Blueprint Hits Snags : Ventura Boulevard: Economic and planning problems as well as bad luck have hurt the plan to tame growth along the Valley thoroughfare.

Nineteen months ago, residents and Los Angeles officials were convinced they finally held the power to tame unruly growth, ease traffic and beautify the landscape along Ventura Boulevard’s 17-mile course through the San Fernando Valley.

The blueprint they championed was the Specific Plan, a document intended to guide development for the next 20 years by limiting the height and density of buildings while providing money to relieve traffic congestion and fix up the Valley’s “Main Street.”

But today, the plan is beset by problems that many attribute to a mixture of a bad economy, bad planning and plain bad luck.

“We have seen a combination of factors that could lead to the incremental unraveling” of the plan, said Ken Bernstein, chairman of an advisory group of homeowners and business leaders appointed by the Los Angeles mayor and City Council.

Bernstein and others working with the Specific Plan--once lauded as a potential model for the city--cite a number of factors that they believe are weakening the landmark attempt to control the look and feel of the major thoroughfare:

* Only $934,000 of $13.2 million in fees levied against a group of developers almost a year ago to pay for traffic improvements has been collected. The architects of the plan failed to include penalties for non-payment.

* City employees once assigned to monitor the plan full time have been given other duties because the ordinance is not generating enough money to support their salaries.

* Standard Planning Department rotations resulted in the relocation last week of the project manager who worked for 3 1/2 years on the complex plan.

The latest downturn, say some of the plan’s advocates, is a controversial proposal to give developers 10 years, rather than two, to pay fees for traffic improvements. The amendment, scheduled to be discussed today by a City Council committee, is championed by developers as a way to ease financial hardship brought about by the recession.

In fact, many developers argue that the plan is not working and that it is useless to pursue raising money for improvements when there is little development affecting the boulevard.

Homeowners refute that viewpoint, and decry what they contend are recent attempts to circumvent the plan.

“This plan has just got blown apart,” said Tony Lucente, an advisory board member and representative of five Valley homeowner groups.

His statement, made during a meeting where frustrated board members discussed the state of the plan, contrasted sharply with the delight expressed by city leaders when they gave the ordinance tentative approval Dec. 19, 1990.

At that time, City Councilman Hal Bernson said: “It is a triumph, not only to the people along the corridor but to the whole city.”

The Specific Plan was enacted in response to an intense building boom that residents feared would continue to burden the area with parking and traffic problems.

The plan sets a number of regulations, including limiting the size, height and use of buildings. It also is supposed to provide more than $200 million in improvements to the boulevard, said Allyn Rifkin, principal transportation engineer for the Department of Transportation. Included among the plan’s goals, he said, were additional turn lanes, new parking facilities, more shade trees and park benches where shoppers and residents could relax.

The problem is money. About 45% of the more than $200 million was to be raised through fees charged for processing building plans and by so-called “trip fees,” Rifkin said.

Trip fees are based on a complex formula for calculating the effects that projects would have on boulevard traffic. The fees take into account the number of vehicle trips a development is expected to produce.

City officials counted on $13.2 million from trip fees levied last year on 130 developers to provide income for the first two years, Deputy Planning Director Robert H. Sutton said. So far, though, the city has collected only $934,000 of the money, Department of Transportation records show.

The bills, sent out in December and January, urged property owners to pay their first installment within 60 days. However, because of an oversight, the Specific Plan contains no penalties for late payment, Rifkin has said.

Some property owners complained that they didn’t have enough money and others said the fees were figured incorrectly, prompting the city to study the plan amendment that is up for review today.

At the same time, development has slowed along the boulevard, meaning few new car trips are generated and few new funds are rolling in, Rifkin said.

Already, the Specific Plan, which is supposed to pay for itself, has not supported the salaries and indirect costs of the 4 1/2 staff positions dedicated to it during its first fiscal year, Sutton and Rifkin said. The city’s general fund contributed half of the $440,000 in costs, they said.

This fiscal year, the Planning Department’s request for two positions and the Department of Transportation’s request for 2 1/2 positions dedicated to the plan were turned down because the plan lacked sufficient money, Sutton and Rifkin said.

Employees still will monitor the plan, checking proposed developments to make sure they don’t violate regulations, Sutton said. However, boulevard improvements probably will not be researched, Sutton said. In addition, employees probably will not have time to investigate how best to fund the improvements not paid for by the fees, Sutton and Rifkin said.

“Any time you don’t have fees to support a plan, you have the fear of a plan unraveling,” Sutton said. “The plan area needs improvements and if there’s no money, you can’t get things accomplished.

“Hopefully, it’s just a delay because of the economy and once the economy turns around, the plan will get going in its proper direction.”

His hopes are echoed by others, who attribute problems raising money to the slow economy. Many homeowners, meanwhile, blame the problems on the developers’ requests for longer payment plans.

But Fred N. Gaines, an attorney representing 11 developers who want to appeal their trip fees, rejects the homeowners’ point of view, saying that the plan was “not working anyway.”

He said that if the plan remains as it is, when the economy does rebound, developers will look elsewhere to build, eager to avoid the large fees.

“The fees they anticipate generating I don’t think will ever be,” Gaines said. “I’m not sure what of the plan they will ever be able to implement.”