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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Growth or no Growth?

If developers get their way, 600-plus new apartments and a new supermarket will rise in Sherman Oaks over the next few years, but their visions have sparked backlashes from residents who believe the projects will degrade rather than improve their communities. The drama is playing out in other San Fernando Valley neighborhoods as well, now that the economy is strong, home prices continue rising, interest rates remain low and Los Angeles has a housing shortage – all factors that make new construction profitable for developers. But standing in their way are community-wide homeowners’ associations, which have become increasingly vocal on projects they oppose – and often reducing the size and height of buildings. They also sue and delay projects for years. One of the most outspoken and reportedly influential homeowners’ groups says three large projects envisioned for Sherman Oaks – the redevelopment of the former Sunkist Growers Inc. headquarters building, the Il Villaggio Toscano apartment complex near the Sherman Oaks Galleria and a new Whole Foods Market – would potentially bring the most development in decades to the area. “I think the combination of low interest rates and high demand for residential has created a lot of development pressures on Sherman Oaks and other areas,” said Richard Close, president for 41 years of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association and a local attorney. “Traffic has gotten so bad over the years, it has created animosity and ill will against big projects.” Residential impacts Local apartment builder and manager IMT Capital in Sherman Oaks hopes to redevelop Sunkist’s former headquarters at 14130 and 14154 Riverside Drive into a live/work/play/stay integrated community like others now rising near vibrant shopping malls. The IMT Sherman Oaks Project would renovate the 127,000-square-foot, three-story office structure on 8.3 acres to make it the center of the community surrounded by 278 apartments, more than 27,000 square feet of retail space, a 1,200-space parking structure and 4.7 acres of small park-like areas for the public. It will also provide new access to the L.A. River. SOHA, the homeowners’ association, objected to the original and much larger concept. Through negotiations with IMT, the overall project size was trimmed by 17 percent; the number of apartments dipped to 278 from 298, and retail space was cut to 27,400 square feet from nearly 40,000 square feet. And overall community input added a lot of open space. “We’ve been talking with neighbors and heard the requests for reduction,” said Aaron Green, president of Afriat Consulting Group Inc. in Burbank, which is representing IMT on the project. “We’re still working with neighbors expressing individual concerns about certain amounts of density,” adding, “there’s some strong support of the project as is.” In the eyes of opponents, new residential projects – apartments especially – translate to increased traffic. The IMT project, Close anticipates, would add traffic to the already busy Riverside Drive and Hazeltine Avenue because it abuts the Westfield Fashion Square shopping mall. The project needs a zone change to convert parking into multifamily housing, and surface parking into a parking structure – requests which often trigger opposition. “Infill development creates additional traffic, so if existing traffic is a problem, they (developers) need to either reduce a project’s density or solve the traffic problems offsite,” Close said. “Our response is, to get your spot zoning and variances, you have to solve the problem you’re making worse.” SOHA hopes further negotiating with IMT will get it to agree to build a new road connecting the property and Woodman Avenue, which has the 101 freeway ramps, Close said, and lighten traffic on Riverside and Hazeltine. IMT would be open to connecting the project’s driveway to a new road – if Westfield Corp. in Century City built it, Green said. He believes the road would have to go through Westfield’s property and possibly require relocation of a parking structure. Rising opposition A second project that SOHA is opposed to is the Il Villaggio Toscano mixed-use apartment and retail complex proposed for 4827 Sepulveda Blvd. on a 4.5-acre parcel near the intersection of the 101 and 405 freeways, and down the street from Sherman Oaks Galleria. The 325-unit complex presented by Santa Monica developer M. David Paul needs exemptions to the Ventura-Cahuenga Boulevard Corridor Specific Plan for higher density, height, lot coverage and smaller setbacks from the road. The city of Los Angeles approved the project in 2013 despite appeals by SOHA and opposition from the Encino Property Owners Association and Homeowners of Encino. Then Sherman Oaks Residents for a Safe Environment sued over the project in 2014, without resolution so far. SOHA claims that despite the city’s forced downsizing of the project, residents would be severely impacted by traffic, parking, congestion, noise and air quality. Homeowners groups, associations and neighborhood organizations connect easily through social media to rally against new projects. And bad will between developers and opponents can rage on for years, overturning city approvals and spawning lawsuits. Homeowners in a Woodland Hills neighborhood recently clashed among each other over a proposed elder care facility after suing the city of L.A. and the developer, and sending the project to the city twice for approvals. A different group, the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization Inc., sued the city of L.A. and Westfield over its plan to build the Village at Westfield Topanga mall, raising the ire of the local chamber of commerce that threatened to kick the group out of its organization over the lawsuit. John Walker, a local attorney and executive vice president of WHHO, said his community could potentially see 14,000 more residents over the next 10 years between projects underway and those proposed. Groups like his will fight back when they don’t see a project as an improvement. “It’s not usually common for associations to sue – but that’s becoming more common as City Council members don’t do what you want, and developers get more cavalier,” Walker said. “If both do what’s right, and look to upgrade the community – that’s what homeowners’ associations are really trying to do.” Land use expert Brad Rosenheim of Rosenheim and Associates Inc. in Woodland Hills represents numerous developers proposing or building locally, and says while opposition has been happening for years now, the nature of it has changed. “Today the effort to reach a compromise feels more confrontational with less of an effort to actually create a reasonable solution,” Rosenheim said. “To a certain degree, I believe the continuous use of litigation, particularly CEQA, or California Environmental Quality Act, lawsuits, has changed the dialogue to the negative.” He said SOHA has been especially stringent by insisting that developers’ projects stay within limits in its local specific plan. That has made them more challenging to work with, although he added the group will talk and even negotiate on how to achieve what they want, or don’t want, for a project. Close agrees that opposition and negotiations are needed for “the dance,” as he called it. “The city allows hypothetically 150 units; the developer puts in for 300 units,” Close said. “He knows he’s not going to get them all because we comprise at 225. There’s no question this game is played. It makes the process much longer, but the developer wants to appear to compromise.” In general elections in March and November, homeowners’ associations and other residents’ groups took their feelings to the polls. They rallied in support of two development-curbing measures. The Build Better LA, or Measure JJJ, proposed new labor and wage requirements on most new housing project and was approved by voters in November. Measure S, which would have stalled large-scale development projects for two years, failed to pass. Rosenheim said opposition is responsible for the housing shortage that has in turn caused a crisis in housing costs for all income levels as well as overcrowding in several areas, in which originally single-family home neighborhoods have turned into artificial multi-family ones with many people living in a home. “The concept of not creating enough housing has proven to be a very ineffective tool to stop population growth,” he said. Developers’ crosshairs Single-family home prices in the Valley jumped more than 13 percent in March to $671,500, according to the Southland Regional Association of Realtors Inc. Steve White, operating principal and president of Keller Williams Realty – Northridge Central, and president-elect of California Association of Realtors, said those fast-rising prices are due to declining inventory, which entices developers to build. Sherman Oaks in particular is receiving interest, he said, because of its prime location close to L.A.’s Westside and the easy commute to the east and west Valley as well as downtown L.A. and Beverly Hills. It and other Valley areas, once considered suburban, are now thought of as centrally located. “Because of its location, it’s popular for developer infill,” White said. “Prices are higher in Sherman Oaks so a developer can build something and rent it, or sell it, for more than if it was in a different location in the San Fernando Valley. So the numbers work.” That has also resulted in underutilized properties converted to their highest and best uses, he added, due to the lack of vacant land. It’s the impetus behind not only IMT’s Sunkist redevelopment concept but also a new Whole Foods Market recently presented officially to residents at a Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council meeting. The site once held a carwash, a gas station and parking. The developer envisions a 52,400-square-foot Whole Foods Market, bigger than the national chain’s typical 30,000- to 45,000-square-foot stores. It’s a concept that residents like – the community already has two of the supermarkets – but the location is a bad idea, Close said. It’s proposed for Tyrone Avenue between Ventura Boulevard and Moorpark Street where traffic doesn’t move at rush hour. Like the Sunkist site, the Whole Foods project would build on parking areas, which requires a zone change, Close said. “It’s about the consequence of the development, not necessarily the size,” he added. Jeff Kalban, chairman of the council’s land use committee, said residents at the presentation mainly expressed concerns about turning onto Ventura Boulevard and Moorpark Street and traffic backups. But rather than hearing just the typical outcries, Kalban said people on both sides articulated clear and possible solutions. The council requested that the second parking level, currently designed as the store’s ground floor, be moved underground so that people walking from the nearby library could walk right into the store. “The community has a right, when you request rezoning, to expect that whatever gets built there is right for Sherman Oaks and the community surrounding it,” he said. Ira Handelman, of Handelman Consulting Inc. in Encino, is handling community relations for Pacific Star Capital of Santa Monica, the developer, who he said is listening to and analyzing the community’s concerns. “We agree (that development should improve a community), and we believe the project will be a benefit to the community, and we’re trying to solve some of the traffic issues that already exist,” Handelman said.

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