PANORAMA CITY : Planners Seek Delay of GM Site Rezoning

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday asked that city planners delay for three months consideration of a rezoning plan that would restrict the type of development permitted on the 118-acre General Motors factory site in Panorama City.

The request, approved by a 13-0 vote, was made by Councilman Ernani Bernardi, the area’s representative, who earlier sought to rezone the GM site to permit only industrial uses after the auto maker closed the plant in the summer 1991.

The existing zoning on the large site permits all but residential uses, city planners say.

More recently, Bernardi’s office has considered a revised plan to permit office development or limited retail use of the site if the retail use is tied to a mass transit station or a side-effect of an industrial use.

But in a Feb. 8 letter to city officials, a GM executive urged that the city delay any changes to the existing zoning so the automobile giant would have the widest range of options in planning for the property’s future.

“The proposed zoning change could cause the redevelopment of the property to be delayed and could deter a prospective purchaser from pursuing a potentially successful development,” wrote George G. Fox, director of Argonaut Realty, the real estate arm of the auto maker.

The Bernardi motion asked planners to carefully monitor GM’s plans for sale or other use of the site.