Council Deadlocks on Proposed Day-Care Center : Northridge: Zoning law concerns are cited. Plan will get another chance Friday when four absent members are expected to attend.

A proposal to open a day-care center and preschool in Northridge failed to win the support of the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday, but the debate prompted council members to consider overhauling the city’s approval process for child-care facilities.

The problem, several councilwomen said, is that under the city’s zoning laws such centers are viewed as commercial ventures, which require public hearings if proposed for residential areas.

“Where better to put children than in a neighborhood?” said Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg during the council’s discussion.

The 36-child center under consideration Wednesday failed to win majority support from the council, but will get another chance Friday when four absent members are expected to attend.

The center, proposed by Sherri Segre for the 18000 block of Devonshire Street, has been fought for months by some nearby homeowners who say the location is inappropriate for a business.

“The project will be a substantial commercial operation,” neighbor Patrick McDonough told the council.

Councilwomen Laura Chick and Goldberg, both of whom supported the project, said the case demonstrates how difficult the city’s process makes it for child-care providers to meet the growing demand for day care.

“It’s really difficult for me to conceptualize a child-care facility as a true-blue commercial use,” said Chick, who vowed to ask planning and zoning officials to review the approval process.

She suggested that the city needs to set guidelines for child-care centers, then allow those that meet the requirements to be automatically approved without the public hearings that so often draw neighborhood opposition.

Under the current approval process, a center for more than 12 children in a residential area requires at least one public hearing and the approval of a city zoning administrator. On average, about half of such cases are rejected, officials said.

Zoning Administrator John Parks said such proposals usually are rejected because of concerns about traffic, inadequate parking space and neighbors’ fears that child-care centers are “out of character with the neighborhood.”

Under state law, a child-care facility with fewer than 12 children requires only a state license, not a city operating permit, and therefore no public hearings.

Statistics seem to prove how much easier it is to attain the state license than a city permit. In Los Angeles County, there are 8,065 family care facilities that care for fewer than 12 children and 2,940 centers that care for more than 12 children, according to state officials.

Segre’s proposal to open her own center in Northridge was approved by Parks last year but was appealed by neighbors to the Board of Zoning Appeals. The board deadlocked on a 2-2 vote, sending the item to a council committee.

The council’s Planning and Land Use Committee, headed by Councilman Hal Bernson, voted 2 to 1 this month to support the neighbors’ appeal and reject Segre’s proposal. Bernson agreed with residents that the project would set a bad precedent for the area.

Despite the council’s split vote Wednesday, Segre was optimistic that she would someday operate the center in the home she and her husband, Fernando, had saved and borrowed to buy. If the council rejects her proposal Friday, she vowed to take her fight to court.

“I know we are going to win,” she said.