The Right Direction for Ventura Blvd. : Officials Realize It’s Time to Reassess Costly Plan

The Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan was adopted in 1991, but its origins and philosophy were firmly rooted in the relatively flush 1980s. That’s a time quite far removed from the economic realities of Southern California today. The plan to tame the boulevard’s unruly growth, ease traffic and enhance it over a 20-year period called for spending nearly a quarter of a billion dollars on capital improvements.

Part of that expense involved about $152 million that was to be used to widen 30 key intersections along the 17-mile boulevard. If that seems inordinately expensive--perhaps even ludicrous--in these hard times, you are right. The city of Los Angeles spends less than one-seventh of that amount annually for street improvements throughout its environs.

Much of this was to have been financed by so-called “trip fees.” That was based on a rather complicated formula involving the number of new car trips generated by new projects. The fees were to be assessed against boulevard property owners and developers when a change of use increased car traffic. The plan envisioned 29,319 new trips over 20 years, which would raise $103 million in fees. Even if that had begun to materialize--and it hasn’t come close--the project would still be left with as much as a $110-million deficit.

Moreover, 38 boulevard property owners have appealed $8.4 million of the $12.5 million in trip fees that have already been imposed. The property owners had earlier agreed to the fees in exchange for building permits while details of the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan were being ironed out between 1985 and 1991. Many now say they never would have agreed to such a thing had they known that the fees would turn out to be so high. The fees have ranged from $2,000 to $800,000.

Those appeals, by the way, have been successful to a degree never envisioned by the plan. On Oct. 15, for example, the Los Angeles City Council waived more than $1 million in trip fees that had been imposed on eight property owners on the boulevard. The council is scheduled to hear dozens more cases in the coming weeks.

The plan has come under increasing attacks as an unfair weight to newcomers to the boulevard. It also has been blamed for so discouraging development along the historic, recession-ravaged route that its survival as a vital economic corridor is in question.

We have said that the plan, in its original form, was too costly and extravagant. We’ve said that its funding package was woefully unrealistic, and that the costs involved in the trip fees represent too much of a financial burden for new or changing businesses to bear at this time. We’ve said that the whole plan ought to be scaled down and reassessed. That finally appears to be happening.

Now, a plan that originated with the Ventura Boulevard (this is going to be a mouthful) Specific Plan Review Board’s budget and finance subcommittee has gained favor with the full board. The idea: to establish as many as five benefit assessment districts for Ventura Boulevard that would distribute improvement costs equally among property owners, whether they were new or established. That idea has garnered a surprising amount of support among many who are closely associated with the boulevard.

Now, the Los Angeles Planning Commission has asked the city staff to examine new ways of paying for the $222-million plan. City planners now call the long-term blueprint a “disincentive to business,” adding that a new way must be found to pay for the ambitious effort. Just how to fund the project was subject to debate. What was clear to the planners, however, was the failure of current funding methods.

“The fee structure in here is just mind-boggling,” says Planning Commission Chairwoman Marna Schnabel. “What about this works? Reading it, I can’t imagine it works.” Los Angeles City Council members want to study the review board’s findings too.

Schnabel’s remarks should be interpreted as a sea change. During the sky’s-the-limit 1980s, extra fees were easily obtained from eager developers in exchange for permits. Now, however, it is the city that is--and should be--eager. It is seeking ways to ease the burden on new developers while also trying to protect existing merchants and nearby residents.

Many at the Planning Commission meeting agreed, for example, that if planners and transportation experts find new ways to fund traffic improvements, such efforts might be appropriately duplicated in other parts of the Valley or Los Angeles as a whole, such as in Warner Center and Central City West. “What we want to do is . . . look at whether there are better ways to fund infrastructure,” said Deputy Planning Director Melanie Fallon. It’s about time.