Ventura Boulevard Senior Housing Plan Backed

SHERMAN OAKS — Despite strong neighborhood opposition, a Los Angeles City Council panel recommended a $2.4-million loan Monday to provide low-income senior citizen housing on a Ventura Boulevard commercial lot that has been vacant and blighted for nearly six years.

If the three-story senior housing complex is approved by the entire council in November, it would represent the final chapter in a long history of bickering and legal haggling among residents, city officials and developers of the lot at Woodman Avenue and Ventura Boulevard.

The proposed 100,000-square-foot complex would mix 84 senior housing units with 3,000 square feet of retail shops and would be the first so-called mixed-use project along Ventura Boulevard.

If approved, demolition of the vacant, graffiti-marred business now on the property would begin in December. Construction could be completed as early as February, 1996.

The $2.4-million low-interest loan recommended for approval by the council’s Housing and Community Redevelopment Committee would help the developer buy the property. The developer would then pay for the remainder of the $8-million project.

Neighbors continued to oppose the project at Monday’s meeting, saying it would create traffic and parking problems. They also argued that seniors would be in danger of being hit by cars while crossing the busy boulevard.

“Ventura Boulevard is just crazy and to do this to seniors is just outrageous,” longtime neighbor Katherine Little said.

Other opponents demanded a full environmental review of the project to document any problems the complex may create.

But Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who represents the Sherman Oaks area, criticized the project’s opponents, blaming them for holding up development on what he called “the ugliest corner in my district.”

City transportation officials say the complex will generate less traffic than the previous businesses on that block, he said.

Yaroslavsky also suggested that neighbors oppose the project partly because it would house low-income tenants. In fact, the petition circulated by opponents includes a headline that reads: “Low-Income Housing Project at Woodman & Ventura?” The petition does not mention senior citizens.

Opponents of the project rejected such charges, saying the site is a poor choice for any senior housing, regardless of whether it is for low-income or wealthy tenants.

“Housing doesn’t belong on Ventura Boulevard, whether it be senior, low-income or luxury,” said Sherman Oaks neighbor Sally Kaplan.

Controversy over the site began in 1988 when the landowner abruptly evicted all the merchants of the block--including the popular Scene of the Crime bookstore--to make way for a three-story, 85,000-square-foot building for office space and stores but no housing.

Responding to neighborhood protests, former City Councilman Michael Woo, who represented the area at the time, blocked the permits to demolish the vacant stores in an attempt to force a full-scale environmental review of the project. The developer, Jacky Gamliel, sued but lost in court.

In 1990, Gamliel asked for an exception to the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan, which puts limits on new buildings along the commercial strip from Studio City to Woodland Hills. The project would have been too big to comply with the plan.

His request was rejected, and in 1991 Gamliel again sued the city, this time challenging the Specific Plan and asking for $10 million in damages. Attorneys for the developer said they plan to drop the lawsuit if the city approves the development without major alterations.