Not an Open Book

After years of complaints that the local library is too small and lacks sufficient parking, Los Angeles Public Library officials decided to tear it down and replace it with one twice its size.

But they have run into unexpected dissent from two fronts: the Los Angeles Conservancy, which believes the 1962 building is architecturally significant, and neighbors, who say the new library’s rear parking would hurt property values and attract more homeless people.

“There’s no question this library is a well-loved building in the community and that it has attractive architectural qualities--a lightness and airiness associated with this type of modern architecture,” said Ken Bernstein, the conservancy’s director of preservation issues.

Fontayne Holmes, director of library facilities for the Los Angeles Public Library, said rear parking behind the Ventura Boulevard building would provide the greatest number of spaces. Also, a majority of residents who attended a meeting held Thursday at the Woodland Hills branch voted for the plan.

“We need to make sure we design something beautiful for [neighbors] to look out on and [that’s] safe, and we don’t want to create spaces for street people,” Holmes said.

Bob Shellhorn, 50, who lives on Costanso Street behind the library at 22200 Ventura Blvd., said homeless people sleep behind the library and he has found plastic bags containing their belongings hidden under mounds of leaves.

“If this becomes a parking area, I’m basically looking at a homeless encampment coming back here,” he said.

At 12,500 square feet, the $3.1-million library would be more than twice the size of the current building. It would be one level in front and two in the rear, Holmes said. It also would have 48 public parking spaces, contrasted with the current 27, she said.

It would contain 28 public computers, a 90-seat after-hours meeting room and a children’s storytelling area, senior librarian Diana Lisignoli-Cochran said. There are now six computer terminals.

Seating capacity would be doubled to 110 and shelf space would increase from 52,000 items to 100,000, she said.

Funds from the $178.3-million Proposition DD bond approved by voters in 1998 will pay for construction, expected to last a year. The Woodland Hills branch is one of 12 Valley libraries that are to be renovated, expanded or replaced.

A diverse group of people, from seniors who read popular fiction to children from nearby schools who do their homework in the library, checked out more than 188,000 books, videos and other materials last year, Lisignoli-Cochran said.

Many residents agree the library is too small for the community of about 40,000 that it serves.

“I think most of our attachment is sentimental. We’ve outgrown this library,” said Monique Herbst, 57, of Woodland Hills. “The question is how to give us what we want.”

But Bernstein questioned whether the library really needs to be demolished.

“Most wouldn’t consider a library built in 1962 valuable,” he said. “But there’s the growing realization that mid-century architecture is worthwhile and worth preserving and we are losing so much of our recent past. Often it gets lost before it’s valued and appreciated.”

He suggested library officials construct a larger building elsewhere and leave the current structure for another community purpose.

A similar solution was chosen for Canoga Park Library, which was designed by the same architectural firm--Bowerman and Hobson--as the Woodland Hills branch. The Canoga Park branch on Owensmouth Avenue will not be demolished because of its proximity to a historical building that officials do not want disturbed. A new branch will be built on Sherman Way.

But Holmes said there is no money to buy a lot and build a Woodland Hills branch elsewhere.

It would cost an additional $600,000 to expand and upgrade the building, and bringing it up to code with modern equipment would destroy the building’s charms that people want to retain, Holmes said. For instance, half of the library’s windows would have to be covered with concrete, she said.

The library’s large windows allow staff members and patrons to view sycamores, eucalyptus and pepper trees planted in 1962. The new library will try to preserve most of the trees, Holmes said.

Yet the qualities that make the library stand out have a downside, said the new library’s architect, Barton Phelps, of Barton Phelps & Associates in L.A., which also designed the new Los Feliz branch.

“It’s sort of sculptural [and] very difficult to touch it anyplace,” he said. “I wish it were on a bigger site and built differently. It’s its own worst enemy.”