Valleywide : Boulevard Plan Lags With City Attorney

A proposal to fix a flawed plan for growth along Ventura Boulevard is more than three months behind schedule, stalled in the city attorney’s office, a Los Angeles city planning official said this week.

Deputy Planning Director Bob Sutton said the city attorney’s review of his department’s proposed changes to the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan has been delayed because it is behind higher priority cases and is now being edited to legal standards.

The $222-million plan adopted in 1991 called for street widenings, new parking structures and landscaping along the boulevard and was to be paid for through developer fees, assessment districts and public money.

Developers have appealed their fees, which were determined to have been too high, and few improvements have been made.

On July 11, the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee cut developer fees by 76% and asked the Planning Department to bring back a plan amendment within 60 days.

Sutton said the amendment will probably be ready by February.

Among the issues under scrutiny by the city attorney’s office, according to Sutton, is the legality of a proposal to set aside $250,000 to promote the idea of assessment districts to property owners along the boulevard.

Assessment districts are areas in which landowners agree to be assessed fees to pay for improvement projects such as street beautification.

Ken Bernstein, planning aide to City Councilwoman Laura Chick, a member of the planning committee, said Chick’s office has been working with the city attorney’s office and the Planning Department to try to speed up the process.