Major Sepulveda Boulevard Development Ready for Public Comment

On paper, it looks like a grand place to live. The question up for debate is whether anyone will get a chance to live there.

The controversy brewing over a plot of land at Camarillo Street and Sepulveda Boulevard heated up last week when the city released the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the proposed Il Villagio Toscano, one of the largest development plans in the San Fernando Valley.

The 109-page report, with sketches, detailed the luxury residential project, a 500-unit apartment building in the style of an Italian villa, including courtyards and a lush garden. The proposal also seeks mixed zoning to provide stores and a four-story parking structure. The project is the brainchild of local developer M. David Paul.

The Los Angeles Planning Commission will review public comments on the project in February.  

“Whatever they put there will make it look better than it does now,” said Sherman Oaks resident Rich Frey.

The group opposing the project doesn’t see it that way.

"We object to the traffic, noise, congestion, infrastructure damage and pollution,” said Gerald A. Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino, in a statement to Patch.com.

Silver’s statement is on behalf of the Coalition to Stop Il Villagio Toscano, whose Web site says is made up of "residents, businesses and community associations seeking to actively reduce the size and scope of the project.”

The coalition's site goes on to say the Encino Property Owners Association and the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association are “active supporters of the Coalition.”

“Noise pollution? We don’t see that as an issue at all,” said the project's development manager, Paul Kruger.

Kruger called the project a “major undertaking of the community,” and said the end result will do nothing but “improve the community.”  If it makes it through all the bureaucratic hurdles, Kruger said, the project will be complete in “2012 or 2013.”

The proposed development site is a patch of land alongside the 101 and 405 freeways. The site once held homes and office buildings, which were damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake and razed, leaving a vacant lot with a chain-link fence.

The Coalition to Stop Il Villagio Toscano isn't opposed to building on the site; it's just opposed to the size of the project, Silver said.

“The project is in the Ventura/Cahuenga Specific Plan that forbids structures of this size and height. The project violates the language and spirit of the Specific Plan and will create environmental problems that cannot be mitigated," Silver said.

“I appreciate his comments and look forward to seeing his plans in the submission process,” Kruger responded.

Any comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report must be sent by Feb. 7 to Hadar Plafkin, City Planning Department, Room 750, City Hall, 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012.