Seniors Housing Plan Sparks Debate

In an often heated debate, homeowners and city officials clashed on plans for a low-income senior housing complex on the corner of Noble Avenue and Moorpark Street, the site of an excavated hole that has gobbled up past development schemes.

The complex, proposed for land owned by Danny Alpert, would be built by the nonsectarian Menorah Housing Foundation and include 85 units and 85 parking spaces at a four-story building at 15126 Moorpark St.

Presiding over the public hearing was City Planner Dan O’Donnell, who listened to over 2 1/2 hours of testimony and will issue a report to city planning commissioners. O’Donnell said he had not decided what to recommend.

At a July 23 hearing in front of city planning commissioners, supporters will seek a conditional use permit and a variance permitting them to build more than the allowable number of units. Under city code, the developer would be limited to 54 units and 27 parking spaces.

“There is in Sherman Oaks an acute need for senior housing that is affordable,” said Councilman Mike Feuer, who helped finalize the deal with the developer after area residents objected to the developer’s last proposal of a 115-unit senior citizen center with 72 parking places.

“I think we have done a very good job of balancing the need for a senior housing facility and the needs of those in the community,” Feuer said.

The site has been a point of contention ever since a developer won approval for and started to construct a 43-unit condominium project on the land in the late 1980s, only to abandon the plan because of a sluggish real estate market. Since that project was stopped, overgrown grass and weeds have taken over a hole originally dug for an underground parking garage.

About 50 area residents attended Monday’s meeting to voice their disapproval of the latest development proposal.

At one point, Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. member David Rankell asked those opposed to the project to stand so that Feuer would see the numbers. Nearly three-quarters of those in the auditorium rose.

“We like our senior citizens and many of our members are senior citizens,” Rankell said. “We are strictly opposed to this density increase.”

Nearly 20 homeowners spoke against the current proposal.

“I have a problem with the process this has taken,” Marcy Shaffer said. “We are just at the part when we are starting to make a comeback and we get hit with a project that will have a negative impact on our properties.”

Residents’ main objections focused on parking problems, an increase in traffic and the perception that the senior complex would not fit in with the surrounding neighborhood of single-family homes.

Howard Katz, an attorney representing Menorah, said many of the parking and traffic objections were hard to understand since the project calls for more parking than is required by city code. The minimum number of spaces allowed is half a space per unit. The latest proposal gives one space for every unit.

To make the building more compatible with the neighborhood, Katz said the developer would step-back the top floor of the building.

Not all attending the hearing were interested in the details of the project. A few just wanted to find a place to live.

“There’s not really many places in the San Fernando Valley for low-cost housing,” said Beverly A. Walter, 62, who with her husband has been looking for affordable senior housing for about 10 years. “At a lot of places there’s a waiting list of 400 people. You almost have to wait for somebody to die.”