Study Urges End to Area's Status as 'Stepchild' : Redevelopment: A novel plan drawn up by urban design experts calls for establishing a 'town center' in the run-down east section of city.

Study Urges End to Area’s Status as ‘Stepchild’ : Redevelopment: A novel plan drawn up by urban design experts calls for establishing a ‘town center’ in the run-down east section of city.

By DUKE HELFAND

Nov. 21, 1991 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

An independent panel of urban design experts this week urged the West Hollywood City Council to show a public commitment to the city’s run-down east end by creating a “town center” around its largest park.

That would mean a new City Hall across from Plummer Park, accompanied by an “urban plaza” with underground parking and a promenade leading to nearby Poinsettia Park in Los Angeles. The panel also envisions redevelopment of businesses and affordable housing along Santa Monica Boulevard.

The recommendations are the result of the Studio District Design Action Workshop, held over a four-day period last week. The 12-member panel, composed of urban planners, transportation specialists, business owners, developers and community activists, released its findings to the council Monday.

“West Hollywood is a single city with unique districts,” Kenneth Bernstein, the panel’s co-facilitator, told the council. “The city should not treat the east end as a stepchild.”

The report offers a number of novel ideas, including the creation of a nonprofit economic development corporation to oversee redevelopment along Santa Monica Boulevard, particularly along what it terms the “commercial district” between Vista and Fairfax avenues. In addition, it suggests that the city create a “studio district” to attract entertainment-related businesses, including production, publishing and recording companies.

The panel, much like the council, views expansion plans for Warner Bros. Hollywood Studios as one of the keys for upgrading the area. The studio, which runs along Santa Monica Boulevard between Poinsettia Place and La Brea Avenue, plans to add nearly 400,000 square feet of office space and a six-story office building along Formosa Avenue.

City staff will spend the next three months combing through the material to make their own recommendations to the council. So far, reaction to the report appears mixed. Although council members praised many of the ideas, they said they have not had enough time to fully examine the 72-page document.

Councilwoman Abbe Land said she still wants more information.

“I look for more specifics on how we reach some of the goals in this document,” she said. “What’s missing is the ‘how’ in all this.”

Some residents question the panel’s ideas for addressing east-end social ills. Tad Bright, co-chair of the citizen group Eastend Community Action, said his group opposes the proposal that the city open a daytime center for the homeless. The report also suggests that local businesses employ the homeless to do odd jobs like cleaning streets or painting run-down buildings along Santa Monica Boulevard.

“A shelter like this will attract more of those people into the neighborhood and increase the problems that we already have there,” Bright said.

Bright and other east-end residents last year opposed the creation of a 24-hour homeless shelter on La Brea Avenue. Many of those same residents expressed anger before the panel last week over what they say are ongoing problems with the homeless and with prostitution in the area.

Bernstein and other members of the panel urged reconciliation among the city’s factious groups and urged people to “focus on the positive aspects of the east end and the visions contained in this report.”

But there could be other sticking points. The proposed site for a new City Hall, at Martel Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, conflicts with a nearby site selected recently by a city-appointed committee. The new proposal will be sent to the City Hall Site Selection Committee, which will make a final recommendation to the council within two months.

Nonetheless, many city officials expressed optimism that such problems can be ironed out.

“This is an important first step,” said Ben Claven, a member of the city’s Planning Commission. “Hopefully, this will be a point of departure for implementing a new view of the east end.”