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News stories | Litter of the law |Panorama residents unite to stop apartment complex |

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20951~1458056,00.html

Litter of the law

LaBonge proposal would help clean up Valley street

6-19-03 Just looking around any number of San Fernando Valley neighborhoods, it's hard to believe that littering is illegal in the city of Los Angeles.

That's because the city's anti-littering ordinance is arguably its least enforced law. In 2002, the Los Angeles Police Department issued a grand total of zero littering citations, and for good reason.

The fine for littering in L.A. is an astonishing $1,000. So LAPD officers are reluctant to issue it lightly or, for that matter, at all.

The ironic result is that a fine which should, by virtue of its steep price, deter people from littering has no deterrent value at all because no one ever has to pay it.

To remedy the problem, City Councilman Tom LaBonge has proposed reducing the penalty to a more sensible $50.

It's a good idea. Los Angeles could do a lot more to curb the scourge of litter, which flows through city sewers into Santa Monica Bay, by issuing many small fines instead of no large ones.

The $1,000 fine, like the litter it fails to contain, belongs in the trash.

Copyright © 2003 Los Angeles Daily News Los Angeles Newspaper Group

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~1444038,00.html

Panorama residents unite to stop apartment complex

By James Nash Staff Writer

PANORAMA CITY -- Back in the 1950s, young families were lured to ranch-style homes in the new Los Ranchitos tract with the developer's promise of "90 by 190 feet of pleasure."

As their families grew and San Fernando Valley built up around them, residents fought successfully to preserve their neighborhood against the economic decline and rising crime that blighted other areas.

Now residents are banding together as never before to challenge plans for an 80-unit apartment building they fear will disrupt their tranquil lifestyle and bring in traffic, noise and crime.

"It was all horses and dogs and kids at one time," said Janie Baker, who was a young child when her family moved to the Los Ranchitos tract in 1958. "I realize that everything changes, but we'd like to keep some of the original flavor of the area."

Baker and five of her neighbors spoke out against the proposed complex during a hearing Friday before a Los Angeles Planning Department official. The hearing officer didn't issue a ruling, and the proposal now goes before the North Valley Area Planning Commission on July 24.

During the hearing, residents of the Los Ranchitos tract and others in Panorama City bemoaned what they said is the erosion of the community's middle-class, suburban way of life. Some residents said they have stood by as large apartment complexes were built along Van Nuys Boulevard, bringing problems ranging from discarded furniture to sporadic gunfire.

Longtime Panorama City resident Barbara Hawkins, who lives in another neighborhood, said the proliferation of apartments across the Valley troubles her.

"I've watched these huge, huge structures go up and turn the Valley into ... I don't know what," said Hawkins, who has lived in the same home for 50 years. "It's not the San Fernando Valley anymore."

But the 1950s are history, and the Valley's future holds more apartment buildings like the one proposed for the Los Ranchitos area, said David Gershwin, spokesman for City Council President Alex Padilla, who represents Panorama City. With population and housing costs both sharply increasing in Los Angeles, apartments and other higher-density housing are inevitable and not necessarily bad, Gershwin said.

"The post-agrarian lifestyle of the San Fernando Valley is a thing of the past," he said. "The San Fernando Valley has changed. The entire city of Los Angeles has changed. With all of those changes, the city of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley are more vital."

But many homeowner activists say the city's vision of "vital" consists of packing ever-larger numbers of people into the once-suburban tracts of the Valley, straining public services such as schools, streets and police.

U.S. Census figures show that population density in the Valley increased 11.3 percent between 1990 and 2000, while population density in the central city was up only 2.4 percent. Even with the increase, the Valley had about half as many people per square mile as the central city.

With little remaining land to develop, the Valley's population influx means bigger and taller apartments where single-family homes once predominated, homeowner activists say.

"It's ruining the look of all the neighborhoods," said Stefanie Spikell of Studio City, who has complained about "monster" apartment buildings on Moorpark Street. "I think it's the fate of Los Angeles, truthfully, because we are overpopulated and underhoused. Everyone needs housing, and we just don't have enough here."

In a meeting last week with San Fernando Valley civic and business leaders, Mayor James Hahn outlined a new emphasis on building more housing along transit corridors and in blighted and vacant commercial areas.

The area around CSUN is designated for a 40% bonus density increase over the current zoning  and most Northridge streets are considered high density corridor which would be considered for conversion from single family homes to mutil-family homes.

Deputy Mayor Jonathan Kevles said Hahn's proposal will create new housing, much of it within reach of working-class families, without detracting from traditional neighborhoods in the Valley and elsewhere in Los Angeles. The clusters of apartments and stores -- which Kevles called "urban villages" -- would exist alongside neighborhoods of homes without displacing them, he said.

"We believe that by converting single-story rundown retail into two- or three-story residential, possibly with neighborhood-serving retail, we can actually significantly increase the quality of life in those neighborhoods," Kevles said. "We really see this transformation of the commercial corridors as a means of providing new life and vitality to neighborhoods."

But homeowners in Panorama City's Los Ranchitos tract say they've brought new life and vitality the old-fashioned way: by restoring their homes and lawns to their original postwar condition and coming together as a neighborhood. An apartment building will bring more crime, depress property values and destroy the fabric of the neighborhood, said Mark Gottlieb, who bought a home in Los Ranchitos in 2001.

"It will take away from the preceding six years where this neighborhood has revitalized itself with the pride of ownership," Gottlieb said. "I argue with people -- I tell them I live in a really nice part of Panorama City."

The builder of the proposed apartment complex, Chuck Francoeur of Tarzana-based Montage Development, said the building won't change the character of the Los Ranchitos area. In fact, the Van Nuys Boulevard corridor already is lined with apartment buildings owing to its location as a key transit corridor, he said.

The proposed 80-unit complex will include courtyard areas and will resemble the new civic center complex in Van Nuys, Francoeur said. Many units will be marketed to working-class families, with rents ranging from $650 a month to more than $1,000 for one- to three-bedroom units.

"Not everybody can buy a house in the Valley these days," he said. "We've targeted Panorama City as an area that needs good, decent work-force housing that people would be happy to live in."

Copyright © 2003 Los Angeles Daily News Los Angeles Newspaper Group