Council OKs Funds for Studio City Parking Lot

As part of a budget compromise, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved spending $5.5 million to help build the first public parking lot in Studio City and expand a library there.

The funding, approved unanimously at the recommendation of Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, will provide more than half the money needed to build the Studio City parking lot and a parking structure in Westwood and also to buy property to expand a Studio City library.

The total cost of the three projects is $7.7 million, but Yaroslavsky said Wednesday that he reduced his request by about $2.2 million as part of a budget compromise he made with Mayor Tom Bradley.

Yaroslavsky said he will try to identify alternative funding sources to make up the balance.

A debate erupted last week over Bradley’s proposal to take $37.5 million from a parking meter trust fund to help close what is projected to be a $180-million deficit in the city’s budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Funding for the parking lots and the library expansion was to come from that fund.

Yaroslavsky, chairman of the council’s budget committee, said he struck a compromise with Bradley to allow the city to tap the parking meter fund without eliminating the money for the Studio City and Westwood projects.

Dorothy Black, a Studio City merchant, told the council that the parking lot was desperately needed for customers. “There is no public parking in Studio City because of the recent heavy industrialization,” she said.

The city Department of Transportation has been considering buying one of three sites for the parking lot in the 12200 block of Ventura Boulevard--all of them existing parking lots that could be converted to public lots. Each lot has about 80 spaces.