On the Road to a New Identity

It’s happened again.

Another part of the Valley has changed its name, spurning its identity.

This time, though, the switch is more than just a cheap ploy to hike property values with a pretty new moniker. The new name actually reflects reality better--though not necessarily a better reality.

Early last month, Caltrans slapped bright, shiny letters on a sign above the Ronald Reagan Freeway. The words “Winnetka Avenue 3 3/4” appeared suddenly to announce the birth of an exit.

Then, at a Los Angeles City Council meeting Nov. 25, Councilman Hal Bernson succeeded in pushing through a motion to change the name of the portion of Winnetka Avenue that lies north of the freeway.

The new street: Porter Ranch Drive, which leads, not coincidentally, to the new community of Porter Ranch. The new Winnetka Avenue exit sign will soon be altered to reflect the change.

But more on that in a minute.

First, a review of recent Valley face lifts. The surgery began in 1987, after a protracted battle to create West Hills out of the western hills of Canoga Park. It was perhaps the last time a new community name would make sense.

Four years later, Sepulveda turned into North Hills, despite its location in the Valley’s center and its utter lack of any hill higher than a speed bump. The same year, a chunk of North Hollywood broke off into Valley Village, a 2-square-mile area of thousands of homes that hardly fits Webster’s vision of a “group of houses in the country.”

Later, about 100 homes--the size, at least, of a village--broke from North Hollywood to form West Toluca Lake, despite lacking contact with the lake itself. The curious phenomenon of naming communities after noncontiguous, though neighboring, bodies of water continued this fall, when a group of Van Nuys residents proposed naming themselves Lake Balboa--which is located in Encino.

This brings us to the most recent name change. Although it doesn’t refer to a community, it affects a street leading to one.

And there’s the rub.

Powerful Beverly Hills developer Nathan Shapell suggested the name change. The exit leads directly to his massive Porter Ranch development, where homes are currently being built for sale.

The developer, of course, says the new name is needed to foster a better sense of community among the 11,000 homeowners projected to live in the neighborhood perched on the hills overlooking the Valley.

Said Porter Ranch spokesman Richard Mahan: “It’s something that makes a lot of sense.”

And also dollars, critics say. After all, what could be a better advertisement for a new community then a large reflective white sign passed by thousands of motorists every day?

Although Shapell has agreed to pick up the estimated $52,000 cost of changing the sign, skeptics say that’s a bargain for what amounts to a free billboard.

“They get free advertising for the rest of the life of the community. It stinks,” said longtime Porter Ranch critic Walter Prince.

Even Bernson’s office acknowledged an economic motive to the change: “Obviously, it makes promotional sense” said Ali Sar, Bernson’s spokesman.

Meanwhile, residents of Porter Ranch say the community indeed has drawn closer in recent months--though the new sign has nothing to do with it.

Instead, they point to the recent opening of a Toys R Us and Best Buy in front of the development off Corbin Avenue--a spot that, in early plans, was to become an upscale shopping center like The Commons in Calabasas.

Neighbors objected to the boxy superstores, saying the developer promised stores like Nordstrom, Pavilions and Starbucks. For the first time, they banded together in protest.

Though their activism came too late in the process to change the new stores, they vowed to keep a closer watch on Shapell and his plans in the future.

“We’re trying to get involved early to try to understand what’s really going on,” said Don Magnuson, president of the Northridge Heights Community Assn. “If the development doesn’t make sense to us, we’ll certainly put forth our small voice as a group of 400 homes.”

Which brings us to the reason the new name reflects reality better than the old one.

Go to the former Winnetka Avenue exit and look around.

To the south, the street formerly known as Winnetka dead ends in a chain-link fence and a few signs marred with graffiti.

To the west lies a Caltrans park-and-ride lot, black asphalt crammed with cars. To the east, a barren stretch of fallow land.

*

To the north, the scene gets even uglier. The hangar-like Toys R Us and Best Buy rise up. In front and back sit earthmovers, miles and miles of empty asphalt parking lots and vast stretches of scarred land.

Beyond them, finally, comes the uniform dun march of the homes of Porter Ranch, the source of the name for the new street. The ranch, in turn, celebrates the tarnished memory of George K. Porter, an early Valley pioneer who had a hand in seizing part of the land from a small band of Mexicans and Native Americans who held legitimate title to it.

That etymology stands in marked contrast to the word Winnetka. In the language of the Potawatomi Indians of the Great Lakes region, the word means “beautiful place.”

It’s not hard to see which handle fits better.