WOODLAND HILLS : Transportation Lobby Being Formed

Warner Center will have its own transportation lobby thanks to a new organization of business owners now in the process of incorporation.

The new Warner Center Local Development Corp. will schedule a meeting to elect its first board of directors in coming weeks, said Ken Bernstein, planning and transportation deputy for City Councilwoman Laura Chick, who organized last month’s kick-off meeting.

The point, Bernstein said, is to lay some of the responsibility for lobbying for transportation dollars at the feet of those drawing traffic to the area: the developers and business owners who are turning Warner Center into one of the Valley’s central business and employment areas.

The city has not received its fair share of federal and state transportation money in the past, Bernstein contends.

Now, city officials hope the private sector will be more successful at lobbying for funds than Los Angeles has been.

The corporation will probably hire staff members who will be charged with securing funding from the government agencies, Bernstein said.

Los Angeles routinely collects fees from developers to pay to widen roads or add interchanges for the traffic their projects create.

But in the case of Warner Center, developers were given a break on trip fees in exchange for supporting a local development council. If the council fails to raise enough money to pay for road improvements, the group must pay the higher fees, or no new development will be allowed, according to the terms of the Warner Center Specific Plan, the legal document which allowed construction of Warner Center, Bernstein said.