6 PLANNING PANELS PROPOSED VALLEY WOULD GET TWO OF NEW AREA COMMISSIONS.

Byline: Rick Orlov Staff Writer

In one of the most significant steps to implement the new City Charter, the Los Angeles Planning Commission on Thursday recommended six area planning commissions be created with two in the San Fernando Valley.

At the same time, to deal with their own concerns about the size of the new panels, the commission said it will be monitoring the workload to determine if more should be created in the future to provide for more community input.

``These commissions will be dealing with populations larger than all but a handful of cities around the country,'' Commissioner Marna Schnabel said.

``It seems the goal of the new charter is to deal with more local concerns. It's all well and good to draw up a pretty map with neat lines, but that doesn't deal with the people issue,'' Schnabel said. ``It might be more convenient for us, but will it serve the public?''

She was joined by Commissioner Bob Scott in urging that at least seven area planning commissions be formed.

``We are creating one commission that will serve 1.4 million people,'' Scott said. ``That seems too big an area for me to be comfortable with.''

He was referring to the largest of the new commissions which will cover the metropolitan Los Angeles area, running roughly from the east side of West Los Angeles through to East Los Angeles and including South Los Angeles.

The proposals will go to the City Council for consideration, where there has been some sentiment voiced to further increase the number of area planning commissions.

Two of the proposed commissions will divide the Valley.

The North Valley panel will include Chatsworth, Porter Ranch, Northridge, Granada Hills, Sylmar, Mission Hills, Panorama City, North Hills, Arleta, Pacoima, Sun Valley, La Tuna Canyon, Sunland-Tujunga, Lake View Terrace and Shadow Hills.

Communities included in the South Valley panel are Canoga Park, Winnetka, Woodland Hills, West Hills, Reseda, Van Nuys, Encino, Tarzana, Sherman Oaks, North Hollywood and Valley Village.

The new voter-approved charter required the city to create at least five area planning commissions to deal with complaints from residents that planning matters were too removed from them and that local residents should have a greater voice with commissioners coming from their own areas.

Schnabel said she was concerned the new panels would not meet that need.

However, as part of the new system, the commission voted to require that there be input from the advisory neighborhood councils that are to be formed over the next year.

Doing that will give the neighborhood councils a formal role in dealing with the area planning commissions, officials said.

In taking the action, the commission recommended against creating a separate panel to deal with hillside areas.

Bob Reed of Mulholland Now said his organization was concerned that splitting it among three area planning commissions would result in conflicting decisions in violation of the Mulholland specific plan.

However, Planning Director Con Howe said the department's staff will continue to coordinate all proposals for the Mulholland corridor and would watch any proposals for exceptions to the plan.