HOMEOWNERS: TIE DEVELOPMENT TO FUNDING.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

Homeowners who have battled Los Angeles' development policies for years argued in court Wednesday that the city should limit any new building unless it has the funds to provide traffic improvements for the gridlock that will result.

In arguments before the state Court of Appeal in Los Angeles, the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations argued that the city cannot simply say there's no guaranteed money for improvements, as has been the city's position in the General Plan Framework they are protesting.

``Limit growth in the event of funding shortfalls,'' the Federation's attorney Lawrence Teeter told the three-justice panel. The city must ``consider adopting a triggering mechanism that limits growth in the event funding doesn't materialize.''

The city agrees there's no money to guarantee any of the traffic improvements spelled out in the General Plan Framework to ease gridlock as hundreds of thousands of new residents come to the city by 2010.

But the City Attorney's Office argued that the homeowners should have made their case when they first sued the city in 1998 shortly after the Framework was first approved.

``All of his issues cannot be heard now,'' Assistant City Attorney Jack Brown said prior to proceedings. ``You can't keep taking bites out of the same apple.''

The appellate panel has up to 90 days to issue its ruling.

The city and the homeowners have been at odds since the General Plan Framework was first approved 9-4 by the City Council in 1996.

The Framework is a blueprint for development through 2010, and it lays out a strategy of higher density, mixed-use development along transit corridors as a way to accommodate new residents while reducing sprawl.

But the plan never had a guaranteed funding source for the expensive new rail lines, bus service and freeway improvements needed to keep traffic from grinding to a halt.

The Federation, along with another group, successfully sued the city in 1998, claiming the plan failed to spell out how the city would pay for $25 billion in traffic improvements.

But after the City Council re-approved a revised Framework in 2001, as instructed by the court, residents sued again saying the city still wasn't doing enough.

The city's new document simply said the massive transportation solutions needed are contingent on funding and cooperation with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, state and federal government, and the city cannot guarantee funding sources from other agencies.

Lisa Mascaro, [phone]

lisa.mascaro(at)dailynews.com