Residents Persuade Panel to Scrap Plan to Reopen Street

An influential homeowner group won a victory Tuesday when city officials decided to keep Hamlin Street in Van Nuys closed to Sepulveda Boulevard.

The street has been closed since 1987, but city engineers had recommended that it be reopened.

That idea was rejected Tuesday by the city Planning and Land Use Management Committee.

Nearby residents such as Evelyn Landa, fearing an influx of crime, circulated petitions in opposition.

“I think the increased traffic and the speed of the traffic would have been unacceptable,” Landa said. “The people who live on the street have kids.”

Landa was joined in her opposition by The Signature Group, a local developer that owns the closed-off street.

Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn., also spoke against the street’s expansion.

In a separate action Tuesday, the homeowner association lost an attempt to impose conditions on a condominium project proposed to the Board of Zoning Appeals.

The board decided not to grant applicant Jatinder Singh Bawa’s request to build a 12-unit complex at 15057-15061 Burbank Blvd., where neighbors said a cluster of vacant buildings has drawn prostitutes, drug dealers and vagrants.

Schultz’s group asked that Bawa be required to immediately demolish the existing structures.

But the board rejected the entire project.