GENERAL PLAN DIDN'T SATISFY GROWTH FOES.

Byline: Daily News

When the Los Angeles City Council adopted the General Plan in July 1996, the vote was 9-4, over the objections of critics concerned about adding 820,000 new residents - a 25 percent increase - by 2010.

At the time, planned reports were written, but not widely disseminated, warning that population growth would dramatically worsen traffic problems unless measures costing as much as $25 billion were put in place.

To deal with the additional population, the 1996 plan advocated channeling new-home construction into areas now reserved for commercial uses and directing future development into regional commercial centers, including 11 in the San Fernando Valley.

Valley regional centers identified in the plan included Warner Center in Woodland Hills, a stretch of Ventura Boulevard mostly west of the San Diego Freeway in Sherman Oaks, and the Van Nuys Civic Center.

To accommodate the need for additional housing, the plan called for more mixed-use residential and commercial development along some business corridors, including stretches of Van Nuys Boulevard, Sherman Way, Burbank Boulevard, Sunland Boulevard, Chatsworth Street, Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Devonshire Street.

Critics said the plan would destroy single-family neighborhoods and that the city should simply limit growth instead of trying to accommodate it.

Councilman Hal Bernson said the population growth was inevitable, and he defended the 1996 document as a ``plan for a better community.''

Council members Jackie Goldberg, Marvin Braude, Mike Hernandez and Joel Wachs voted against the plan.

Goldberg said her Hollywood-area district was already one of the most densely developed parts of the city, and Hernandez said his district already had overcrowded schools and more than its fair share of low-income housing.