Advisers Examine Fees for Ventura Boulevard Improvement : Development: Some observers fear the study may be used for a legal challenge against the master plan.

In a move critics worry might lead to a full-blown legal challenge to the master plan for overhauling Ventura Boulevard, a consulting firm is studying whether the city properly calculated fees levied on businesses to partially fund the $222-million improvement.

The review is being prepared for lawyers representing more than a dozen property owners in their appeals of fees imposed by the city.

Some observers were concerned about the timing and motivation of the study.

“I’m concerned about the study because it seems to me the only possible use would be a legal challenge against the plan itself,” said Ken Bernstein, planning deputy for Councilwoman Laura Chick. “It would be a shame to have the plan threatened by a legal challenge to the trip fees.”

No legal challenge has been filed, but merchants unhappy with the burden of fees in a stagnant economy have jumped at the chance to challenge them administratively.

The study focuses on the fees levied against boulevard property owners that are based on the amount of rush-hour traffic their properties are expected to generate.

Lawyers for the merchants have argued that legally, the fees must be used to directly offset the impact of development. The economic study may provide ammunition for that argument, according to Fred Gaines, an attorney representing businesses.

“This is part of our argument as to why the fees should be lowered or removed,” Gaines said. “I don’t believe that this will get resolved in court . . . it won’t go that far.

Gaines said he is not trying to challenge the 20-year plan to tame unruly growth, ease traffic and enhance neighborhoods along the historic 17-mile strip.

“This only has to do with the fees,” he said. “It has nothing to do with any other aspect of the plan.”

Since August, analysts from the economic consulting firm Hamilton, Rabinovitz and Alshuler have been conducting interviews and comparing the data and projections the plan was based on to actual development on the boulevard.

“We are studying whether these fees were properly calculated by the city,” Gaines said. “We’re looking at scaling back the plan to meet growth and then adjusting the fees.”

Amid criticism that the complicated trip fee system discourages new business and has produced only a fraction of the revenue its was expected to generate, the Los Angeles Planning Commission last month ordered city staff to find new ways of paying for the boulevard’s enhancement.

One idea, suggested by Jeff Brain, chairman of the citizens panel overseeing implementation of the plan, is to impose a benefit assessment district that would spread the cost of improvements more evenly among all boulevard property owners.

Gaines said the study may support that idea.

Brain said it sounds as if the study is examining many of the issues his panel has been considering.

“I just hope people will not construe this the wrong way and that we’ll be able to continue our process of working to refine but not overturn the plan,” he said. “What’s needed is the political will to make the corrections that need to be made.”