Carwash Sign in Studio City

* Re “This Car Deserves a Hand,” Valley Edition letters, Feb. 6.

You propose a sound and fair resolution to the Hand Car Wash sign controversy. Somehow, the Studio City Residents Assn. has been unable to accept anything less than total victory for “their side”: complete demolition of the sign. The problem is that their side has, in this instance, ceased to represent the people who live and work here in Studio City.

Let’s keep the sign, which brightens a nondescript stretch of Ventura Boulevard, and which would not be replaced, I suspect, with anything other than more undistinguished advertising clutter.

JO PERRY

Studio City

*

Your editorial misses the mark when it suggests that the large sign in front of Studio City Hand Car Wash is a “quirky exception” that should be allowed to remain.

It is the view of the [Ventura / Cahuenga Boulevard] Specific Plan Review Board that this hand is not “art” but a sign. It notifies those passing by that it is a commercial enterprise--a carwash. It is a sign that is in wide violation of the plan and should not be granted an exception. The specific plan was developed to guide development on the Boulevard--to create that “distinctive sense of place” that you mention. You do that by developing guidelines that limit chaotic and uncontrolled signage--among other things. Your position promotes this chaos and undermines the hard work and cooperative efforts that have gone into developing a good plan for all 17 miles of the Boulevard.

JONATHAN SIDY

Chair, Ventura/Cahuenga

Specific Plan Review Board

Tarzana