Ventura Boulevard Plan Threatened : Special interests are trying to change number of intersections that will be affected and shift the financial burden to regional sources that don’t have the money.

A handful of developers and property owners are using the downturn in the economy and the ravages of the earthquake to take control of the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan, designed to control traffic and growth on the 17-mile street.

These special interests are aggressively working to eliminate intersection widenings and avoid their financial responsibility to pay for traffic mitigations. Some developers who have paid into the fund and have built their projects are now demanding their money back. In this “business at any price” climate, the special interests may succeed in taking over the plan.

The city Planning Department is reviewing recommendations for amending the plan to clean up mathematical errors and make other technical changes. The department has held hearings and will conduct a workshop at 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Sherman Oaks Women’s Club, 4808 Kester Ave., to seek public input. A revised budget is being worked on quietly and out of public view.

In our opinion, the amendments go far beyond simply correcting mathematical errors or making minor technical adjustments. The changes would ignore the intent of the original plan, which was to keep traffic flowing while allowing a reasonable amount of growth.

The plan’s originators saw the boulevard as primarily a local retail street and secondarily as a regional artery. Thus they expected 84% of the funding to come from local sources. Having seen the bill, property owners want to shift the payment burden to regional sources--unrealistic because the sources don’t have the money.

The original plan sought to raise a substantial part of the money needed for improvements by setting up a benefit assessment district. This would place part of the burden on in-place property owners, the balance being paid by new developers in the form of fees based on car trips their developments would generate. But until the assessment district is in place, any reduction in trip fees for new development should not be approved.

Another amendment under consideration would discard trip fees and use a project’s size in square feet to determine how much new developers should pay into the plan. While this proposal is not without merit, it must be revenue-neutral to generate the money needed for the required traffic improvements.

*

More than 27 million square feet of new development was envisioned by the plan originators. This would require widening for 370 feet east and west of 30 key intersections. Property owners who stand to lose a few feet of sidewalk in the cause of better traffic flow want to reduce that to 19 intersections, with three other widenings to be deferred. We think that if a major cutback in the number, length or width of widenings is allowed, then a commensurate cutback in allowable development must also be made.

City planners should also oppose falling into the trap of assuming that parking spaces will be shared through use at different times of the day, a scheme to give two or more operations credit for one parking space. The reality is that uses overlap and create significant parking problems. In the worst case, a “sharing” restaurant, theater and office would be occupied simultaneously.

The Planning Department should cut back rather than expand the involvement and authority of the Plan Review Board, as is now being proposed. As we have argued in this space, the board has become a tool of developers whose function is to reduce widenings and other improvements. It does not represent a broad community of interests, nor does it possess the financial resources to hire consultants. Its role should be advisory only.

The board was quick to condemn the original consultant’s street widening figures as faulty. But are the current figures and estimates any more accurate? What is needed is an audit by an independent outside agency to determine the validity of the square footage, right-of-way and widening requirements and their impact on traffic. Only then can the Planning Department make informed decisions.

Some people discount the magnitude of the traffic, citing the recent drop-off. The reduction, however, is temporary, a result of economic decline coupled with the opening of an additional lane on the Ventura Freeway. The recession eventually will end, and the new lane will soon be choked with cars, forcing traffic back to surface streets.

Clearly, some changes are needed in the plan. As it is now proposed, Encino will get 672,395 square feet of new development; Sherman Oaks, only 436,323. The allotments should be transposed to encourage development in Sherman Oaks, which is now scheduled to take the least development of any community on the boulevard but since the earthquake needs help badly.

*

A weakness in the fee schedule is that rates are based on the amount of traffic generated rather than the uses most desired by the community. An improvement would be to reorder the land-use categories and related fees. Office buildings should pay higher fees than retail stores. Supermarkets’ fees should be lowered, while hotels and motels should pay substantially more.

Making these changes will encourage developers to turn Ventura Boulevard into a convenient retail shopping facility serving the community, rather than a high-density, office-hotel corridor and raise money to make the improvements needed to keep traffic flowing.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Open Spaces

One design in the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan call for multipurpose street lights, which could accommodate everything from wires for an electric trolley to hanging plants or banners. It also would serve to frame the boulevard, as well as the sidewalk.