Warner Center 2035 Plan Heads to City Council

The Los Angeles Planning and Land Use Committee voted unanimously Tuesday to recommend that the City Council adopt the Warner Center 2035 plan. 

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield spoke before the vote, calling the plan a "transformative opportunity" for the Valley and saying that "with this plan the community is speaking in one voice, saying: 'We support smart growth. We support business and want more jobs. We want a walkable community with better transportation infrastructure that is more sustainable too. We want the Warner Center area to be a transit-oriented district. But how we get there, is key.'"

The Warner Center 2035 Plan is a development guide for the Warner Center region that, among other things, outlines what would be permitted and what mitigation may be required of developers moving forward.

A copy of the plan can be found online, as can the plan's environmental impact report, history and timeline.

Since 2006, a citizen's advisory council has been working with the city of Los Angeles to create the new plan. California law requires cities to have general plans which guide planning and development (see the Los Angeles General Plan here). Within a city, there can be even more detailed or stringent guidelines for particular areas, and these are found in specific plans. Los Angeles has 45 specific plans, one of which is the Warner Center Specific Plan (you can also download a copy of the current plan, which has been in effect since 1993, on the Department of City Planning website).

The one-and-a-half square mile Warner Center area, named for Harry Warner, the eldest of the Warner brothers, is generally bound by Vanowen Street to the north, the Ventura Freeway to the south, DeSoto Avenue to the east and Topanga Canyon Boulevard to the west. According to the city's website, the area was originally planned to relieve traffic to and from downtown Los Angeles as well as generate jobs in the San Fernando Valley.

-- Rebecca Whitnall