Van Nuys Residents Seeking New Name

A group of west Van Nuys residents who say they are embarrassed that their community is associated with crime is campaigning to rename their neighborhood Lake Balboa, after a nearby lake of reclaimed water.

So far, the city has not supported their efforts.

“We’re embarrassed to say we live here,” said Steve Neuman, a real estate salesman who is leading the drive.

“We should be allowed to change our name. If Van Nuys had such a great name, then why would we want to change it?”

Going door to door, Neuman said he has collected 700 signatures in support of renaming the 3,000 home tracts in the San Fernando Valley, west of the San Diego Freeway and north of Victory Boulevard.

One problem, however, is that Neuman’s West Van Nuys neighborhood does not actually include Lake Balboa, which is in Encino.

Neuman, 32, said the change is not an effort to increase property values: “It has to do with removing the negativity Van Nuys holds over our heads,” he said.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Laura Chick, who represents the neighborhood, said she will not support the change.

In a letter, Chick said name changes lead to divisiveness and don’t solve problems.

“People are searching for quick answers,” Chick said. “I’m looking for real solutions.”

But name changes are nothing new in the Valley--or in Van Nuys, for that matter. One section of Van Nuys have been renamed Valley Glen. Another seceded to Sherman Oaks.

Elsewhere in the Valley, a section of Canoga Park was renamed West Hills, and the entire community known as Sepulveda was renamed North Hills. In North Hollywood, one neighborhood broke away into West Toluca Lake; another became Valley Village.

Peer Ghent, president of the Valley Glen Neighborhood Assn., led his renaming effort last year. “It was unifying and positive in and of itself,” Ghent said.

The effort, he recalled, grew from local Neighborhood Watch meetings and a desire for local identity.

“It was not a question of not being associated with Van Nuys,” Ghent, 59, said.

But for Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn., these efforts hurt those left behind.

“It’s abandoning your community because you don’t want to be associated with the bad,” Schultz said. “We’re going to be a very elite community very soon. Van Nuys will be a hundred people.”

Several residents who support the Lake Balboa name said they do not feel any connection with the neighborhoods of Van Nuys east of the San Diego Freeway.

Evelyn Nichols, 70, has lived in her neighborhood 36 years and hopes a name change will distinguish her home from the gangs and shootings associated with other parts of Van Nuys. “There is a good part and a bad part in Van Nuys. We feel we are in the good part.”

This is not the first time residents have tried to name themselves Lake Balboa.

Ellen Bagelman, president of the Lake Balboa Neighborhood Assn., said she was unable to collect enough signatures to support a name change in 1994.

Neuman said most residents have settled on the name Lake Balboa because of the recreational activities offered at the artificial lake.

So far, no one has complained about being associated with the bad smells that sometimes carry some distance from the lake, he said. Opened in 1992, the 27-acre lake is filled with 72 million gallons of water from sewers that are recycled at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant.