SHERMAN OAKS : Parking Lot Closure Stirs Controversy

Notices that were posted at the only city parking lot in Sherman Oaks warning the lot will close for a year in June were “premature,” according to an aide to City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky.

Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., expressed concern about the parking issue in an interview. Close said the city has not made good on what he said was its promise to provide alternative parking while a senior housing project is being built over the lot.

The parking lot is behind Tower Records at the intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Cedros Avenue.

Businesses on Ventura Boulevard that “are reeling from the earthquake, are going to be seriously hurt because there is no city parking lot,” Close said. “Residents who live to the south of there are not going to be able to find parking in front of their own homes, apartments and condos because of customers and employees parking there. It’s going to be a big mess.”

Signs, which have since been removed, said the lot would be closed from mid-June, 1994, to mid-June, 1995. Those signs will be replaced with signs giving the exact date in June when the lot will be closed, and, hopefully, the location of alternate parking, said Yaroslavsky aide Vivian Rescalvo.

The lot will likely be closed sometime in the latter part of June, she said.

“We’re not reneging,” Rescalvo said. “We’re going to do what we can to find alternative parking.”

But she stopped short of promising that the city will provide alternative parking during the construction because most off-street parking in the area is reserved.

“There may be some inconveniences, but in the long term it will be of benefit to the community because we will have increased the supply of parking,” Rescalvo said.

Yaroslavsky has pushed the senior citizen housing project to include a two-story apartment building over two levels of public parking. The number of metered parking spaces will be increased from the present 137 to 209.