Study Says Plan Would Create 5,000 Jobs, Fuel Traffic Problems : North Hollywood: A redevelopment project would be extended by 12 years. Some call the review flawed.

A plan to extend the life of a redevelopment project in North Hollywood by 12 years would create nearly 5,000 jobs but would also generate unavoidable traffic problems, according to an environmental study.

The study was drafted for the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency to identify the potential effect of a plan to nearly double the life of a redevelopment project in North Hollywood.

The extension would allow the CRA to help build 1.3 million square feet of office space, 200,000 square feet of retail, 218 hotel rooms and more than 500 houses and apartments. It would also extend the CRA’s power to use eminent domain proceedings to acquire property and lift a limit on the amount of taxes the agency can spend for improvements.

The 740-acre redevelopment area is generally bounded by Tujunga and Camellia avenues on the west, Hatteras Street on the north, Cahuenga Boulevard and Vineland Avenue on the east and the Ventura Freeway on the south.

The redevelopment plan was initially adopted in February, 1979, and was intended to revitalize a blighted and deteriorating community. It has since helped to build 865 new houses and apartments, create 399,000 square feet of commercial space and rehabilitate 801 residences.

Don Spivack, CRA’s director of operations, said the project’s original goals have not been met, in part because the passage of Proposition 13 reduced the amount of money the CRA could use. But it was also delayed, he said, because of the slowdown in the economy.

A public hearing on the environmental report was cut short Thursday after North Hollywood residents asked that the city give them 45 days to study the report. A new public hearing was scheduled for Jan. 27 in North Hollywood. A site and time have not been determined.

Mildred Weller, a North Hollywood property owner and member of a CRA advisory group, said in an interview after the meeting that the environmental report is flawed. She said the plan calls for increasing residential and commercial density but does not provide increased police and fire safety.

She also criticized the extension because she said it will make the traffic problem worse. “We haven’t reached the development that the CRA wants, but right now traffic is a disaster,” she said. “That’s ludicrous.”

The study said the project extension would add about 21,000 daily vehicle trips. This would require widening several streets and adding turn lanes at several intersections, the study said.

The study, however, also said the project would add 4,818 permanent jobs, or a .83% increase in jobs in the area, ranging from “lower-paid office reception and clerical workers to highly paid executives.”

Before the project extension can be approved, the study must be adopted by the CRA Board of Commissioners and the Los Angeles City Council.