Area Residents Introduced to Growth Plan : Future: Only a few, however, bother to show up for a briefing on the city’s proposed 20-year vision of Los Angeles.

San Fernando Valley residents got their first formal look Wednesday at a new long-term growth plan intended to guide Los Angeles into the next century, but the half-dozen or so who showed up did not appear impressed.

They milled casually about the Chatsworth High School auditorium, scrutinized colorful poster-sized maps, munched on grocery store cookies and cast skeptical sideways glances as planning officials carefully explained the intricacies of the proposed General Plan.

The General Plan essentially serves as the city’s land-use constitution and establishes the policies under which the neighborhoods that are home to more than 3.2 million Los Angeles residents will develop over the next several decades.

As envisioned by the plan, Los Angeles would be transformed in bits and pieces over 20 years into a city where public transit connects neighborhoods bustling with activity, where home ownership is again affordable, where open space is protected and where the flow of jobs to the suburbs is reversed.

A portrait of a Utopia in which next to nobody was interested.

“Where is everybody?” Planner Dennis Chew asked, surveying the room in which city planners outnumbered members of the public 3 to 2.

Planners have touted the plan as a vision of Los Angeles for future generations because many of its most innovative proposals would not come to fruition until today’s toddlers are adults with families of their own.

Many of those at Wednesday’s hearing, however, were of the age group very likely to die long before the full effect of the plan is apparent. In fact, many of those who have showed up at public hearings on the plan across the city are of the post-World War II generation that benefited most from the years of urban sprawl that planners are now trying to halt.

As the plan moves through the city bureaucracy, this generation gap has emerged as a striking feature in the debate over its adoption. Young people--those the plan is intended to serve--rarely turn out to testify before planning officials.

Consequently, what is emerging is a public record reflecting the views of mostly middle-aged, middle-income white homeowners for whom the status quo is not so bad.

Senior Planner Emily Gabel said the dichotomy was clear at a meeting last year in Sherman Oaks in which a group of older residents wanted their community to remain much as it is. But a small group of younger residents, Gabel said, embraced ideas to change the neighborhood in ways such as incorporating apartments into areas historically dominated by retail shops.

City Planning Director Con Howe said this dynamic is not unusual. Because the plan will be implemented gradually, some longtime residents can expect their neighborhoods to change sooner than others--a prospect that unnerves many whose largest investment is their home.

“I think that is going to be a problem with any plan,” Howe said.

Another factor, Howe said, is the changing perception of Los Angeles as a place. Until very recently, the city enjoyed a sort of national mythological status as a paradise where every house came with an orange grove.

“We are a real city now,” Howe said. And over the next 20 years, the city is projected to add another 820,000 residents.

Ironically, the plan seeks to protect the rich tapestry of single-family neighborhoods that give Los Angeles neighborhoods much of their character. By concentrating new construction in centers served by public transit, planners hope to relieve development pressure on surrounding neighborhoods.

Critics are not so sure.

Naysayers cite the city’s current General Plan, adopted in 1974, as an example of how even the best ideas can fall apart. That plan designated a number of centers around the city--from Century City and Downtown to Warner Center and Hollywood--to be connected by transit.

The problem was that none of the proposed transit lines ever got built and there was little to discourage development outside the centers. Sprawl continued largely unabated.

The new proposals borrow heavily from the 1974 plan. This time around, however, a rail network of subways and commuter trains is under construction. And planners are considering creating incentives to encourage development in so-called “targeted growth areas.”