PANORAMA CITY : Rezoning Urged for New Housing Site

The Los Angeles Planning Commission will recommend that the City Council approve a zone change to allow higher-density housing on a 70,000-square-feet property in Panorama City.

The commission voted Thursday to recommend changing the designation of the property, at 9763 Vesper Ave., from one that would allow one home per lot and one unit per 7,500 square feet to one that allows multiple residences on each lot and one unit every 5,000 square feet.

If approved by the council, the zone change would allow 12 houses to be built on the irregularly shaped parcel south of Lassen Street. Eleven houses would be situated around a private cul-de-sac, while one would be constructed on Cedros Avenue, on which the property also has frontage.

An unusual feature of the development is that the lot will not be divided into individual plots. Instead, the yard space around the two-story houses will be considered common areas, although each homeowner will have to maintain landscaping close to his or her home. Because of the lot’s odd shape, property lines would have been difficult to draw between the homes, said Tom Henry, planning aide to Joel Wachs.

Henry said he heard few complaints about the project at a public hearing in December. The proposed zone “pretty much matches the density of property to the west and north.”

The property is owned by Panorama City resident Helen Higashida. Two houses now on the site would be torn down to make way for the new homes, Henry said.

The project will probably go before the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee within the next month and a half, and to the full council some time thereafter.

Henry said Wachs has not decided whether to support the project.

“To the south you have condominiums,” Henry said. “To the north and west you have single-family homes. We want something that will be a nice buffer between the two, that will not have a negative impact, especially on the single-family homes.”