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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Valley Community Plans Engage Update Process

The Community Plan update mission is underway for the Canoga Park, Winnetka, Woodland Hills and West Hills neighborhoods. The areas are part of the Southwest Valley Community Plans, which also include the Reseda–West Van Nuys and Encino–Tarzana Community Plans, as the first ones in the city of L.A.’s effort to update all 35 plans within the next six years. Craig Weber, principal city planner with the Planning Commission, presented the process with staff members to a standing-room only audience at the Warner Center-Woodland Hills Neighborhood Council board meeting on June 14. The process will address “how activity is going to grow or change” in the areas during the next 20 years, Weber told the audience. The Valley has 12 plans that need updating, except for Sylmar and Granada Hills-Knollwood, whose plans were recently updated. To help the audience understand the need for the updates, Weber explained what is meant by land use. “Land use regulations are development regulations,” he said, and include limits on proposed project elements such as building heights. Specific Plans, which many neighborhoods have, will be intrinsically woven into the Community Plans, Weber said, likening it to grafting skin on top of other skin. The Canoga Park, Winnetka, Woodland Hills and West Hills Community Plan should aim to consider housing 246,000 people, Weber said, but only 220,000 are estimated. “I don’t think we’re envisioning significant new growth in this plan,” he said. The city is also rewriting its zoning and those rules need to be incorporated into updated plans, Weber explained. For instance, the R-1 single-family homes umbrella zoning now has 16 specific zone designations. Residents questioned the planners about developers who ask for exceptions to plans and how the city can prevent that. Such projects have fueled opposition that has often hindered or caused their rejection, or mired them in litigation. Planning Assistant Alycia Witzling answered that the city has to have a discretionary process for zone change requests. But she also added, “the city has heard frustration about projects requesting General Plan changes.” The first step will be gathering research and data. Once drafts of a plan are done, the public can comment at a public hearing. Once revised, the plan will be made public, and will then go to the Planning Commission with chances for more public input. The City Council will then vote on whether to adopt it. Small Homes, Big Opposition The Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council’s planning committee sent a developer hoping to build on Saloma Street back to the drawing table at a June meeting. The Saloma Homes project would build five side-by-side homes on a 7,700-square-foot parcel which now holds a home at 5209 Saloma Ave. It’s proposed by a limited liability corporation, Saloma Holdings. As planned, the three-story homes range between 1,600 and 2,000 square feet and don’t require any changes, variances or exceptions to city guidelines, according to the plans. Avi Galili, the L.A.-based architect, said the project would have a green roof, a green wall and permeable paving. Rainwater would be filtered into a drain. Residents spoke out in opposition to the project, citing concerns over more density and overcrowding. “Another unaffordable housing project is not what we need in Sherman Oaks,” said Hilary Steinberg, who said she lives around the corner from the property. Committee Chairman Jeffrey Kalban called it a “very creatively designed” but flawed project. The committee moved to deny the project, and recommended that it be redesigned for four homes and set back 15 feet on the southern side of the property. Second Life The massive Newhall Ranch master planned community proposed for Santa Clarita was recently re-approved by the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife for its resource management and development plan and its spineflower conservation plan. The department had approved the project in 2010 but the state Supreme Court sent back the approval, saying the department didn’t sufficiently analyze potential greenhouse gas emissions and protection measures for an endangered fish species. Since then, developer Five Point Holdings of Aliso Viejo produced a plan for net zero emissions from the project by offsetting 100 percent of emissions, a plan reviewed and approved by the California Air Resources Board. Five Point changed when and how it would build bridges and stabilize banks to avoid contact with the fish during construction. The proposed development would include 21,500 homes and 11.5 million square feet of commercial and industrial space. Staff Reporter Carol Lawrence can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or [email protected].

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