RESEDA : Plan to Expand Care Center Is Protested

Neighbors of the Jewish Home for the Aging said Monday they will protest the facility’s expansion plans during a public hearing before the Los Angeles Board of Zoning Appeals today. The facility is located on a six-acre parcel at 7150 Tampa Ave. in Reseda.

Its owners hope to build a five-story, 200-bed skilled nursing facility, a three-story board-and-care facility and a 238-space underground parking garage--more than 212,000 square feet of new construction at the site.

Plans previously approved by the city’s Office of Zoning Administration also call for adding a second story to the facility’s existing dining and kitchen building and housing 17 residents in five nearby single-family houses owned by the home.

Michael Turner, spokesman for the home, said the expansion is an effort to keep up with a growing clientele. “The buildings we’re replacing have been around since the late 1940s,” he said.

The new construction would increase the home’s capacity from 270 to 470 residents, Turner said.

But nearby residents who oppose the expansion claim that the proposal would downgrade the character of the neighborhood by causing their properties to lose their desirability as single-family homes.

“The potential for added noise, pollution [and] traffic during demolition and reconstruction will disturb the surrounding community to an untenable degree,” said homeowner Charlotte R. Baker.

Before approving the project in January, a city zoning administrator attached 36 conditions to the Jewish center’s plans.

It was ordered to reduce the proposed five-story structure to three stories and require that all employees and service contractors park their vehicles on the facility’s grounds, rather than the street.

Despite the conditions, Baker said the expansion “is not in the best interest of the neighborhood.”

The hearing is scheduled for 9:45 a.m. at 201 N. Figueroa St., Room 170, Los Angeles.

For more information, call (213) 580-5488.