VENTURA BOULEVARD : Annual Review of Specific Plan to Look at Ways to Hike Funds

When passed two years ago, the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan was heralded as a means of guiding growth, improving traffic conditions and beautifying the neighborhoods along the commercial corridor that cuts through the southern San Fernando Valley.

But in 1992 some city planners, homeowners and business leaders sounded an alarm that the landmark blueprint may become obsolete. They said they worried that there was not enough money to pay for improvements to the congested thoroughfare.

Members of a citizens committee conducting an annual review of the plan now say they will devote the first part of the new year to reviewing the plan’s budget, analyzing ways to increase funds and looking at what improvements should be made first.

“I’m concerned that we’re just like an airplane in a nose-dive,” said Jeff Brain, a committee member who stressed that he speaks only for himself. “We do need to make a change and put the plan, or the plane, back in the right direction.”

The plan basically has two parts. One part imposes a number of restrictions on construction, including limiting the size, height and use of buildings.

The second part of the plan imposes a variety of fees on development to help pay for more than $200 million worth of new turn lanes, parking facilities, shade trees and park benches along the congested thoroughfare. The rest of the money for those projects is to come from a variety of sources, including a benefit assessment district which would call on the owners to tax themselves and other unidentified sources.

But many developers have objected to paying the fees. Last year, the city charged 130 developers $13.2 million in so-called “trip fees” to pay for road improvements to offset the impact of their projects on traffic. Those projects were built between 1985, when an interim ordinance took effect, and 1991. To get building permits during that period the developers had to agree in advance to pay the fees included in the final plan.

To date, however, city officials have collected only about a tenth of the money they had hoped to raise from that group, according to Department of Transportation records. Property owners began complaining about the fees a year ago when they were hit with bills ranging from $1,500 to $630,000.

Saying the fees were unfair or that they could not afford them, the property owners asked the city to set up an appeal process and to allow them more than two years during which they would pay in installments. The city Planning Commission, which helps administer the Specific Plan for the boulevard, wanted to spread payments over 10 years while a City Council panel recommended a four-year payment period. The council is to settle the issue.

Meanwhile, 13 citizens on a board set up to monitor how the plan is working have discussed several alternatives for raising more money to carry it out and will examine them more thoroughly in the months ahead, board Chairman Ken Bernstein said.

The ideas include scaling back or delaying the improvements to the boulevard, creating a benefit assessment district to raise additional revenue from all property owners along the boulevard or dipping into parking meter funds, Bernstein said.

Associate City Planner Tom Rath said that funds for some of the improvements may be found by working with other agencies on projects. For example, he said, the city’s cultural affairs department may be interested in paying for banners to be put up or artwork to be commissioned to distinguish one community from another along the boulevard. He said he expects that some beautification project will begin within the year.

To demonstrate the amenities the Specific Plan is intended to bring to the entire boulevard, trees and benches could be put in along at least one stretch, Bernstein said. The plan review board also hopes to hire a consultant to develop permanent design guidelines for the five communities that the plan covers.

Other improvements intended to keep the traffic generated by new developments flowing, such as widening streets, may be delayed because the pace of construction of new buildings has slowed to less than a crawl, Bernstein said.

The planning department and plan review board will release a joint annual report in January or February listing several recommendations on a number of issues related to the Specific Plan. The report also will say that financing of the plan in the long term may be a problem, Bernstein said.

“The plan is at a crossroads,” Bernstein said. “The direction the city and the economy take in 1993 have a great deal to say about whether the plan will ultimately succeed.”