NEIGHBORS FIGHT PLAN TO BUILD WAREHOUSE; STATUARY SELLERS FACE EVICTION FROM SITE.

Byline: Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writer

Neighbors this week will make a last-ditch effort to preserve a popular statuary business targeted as the site for a storage warehouse.

``It just doesn't make sense to use that location for a storage business,'' said neighbor Sam Schiffman. ``We've got enough traffic problems as it is.''

Public Storage Inc.'s proposed, 34,000-square-foot warehouse at Ventura Boulevard and Vanalden Avenue will be the topic of a Los Angeles Board of Zoning Appeals hearing at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday, 201 N. Figueroa St.

Garden Statuary is a local landmark, selling concrete fountains, goddesses and nymphs for half a century. Don and Judy Buksar have been running the business on a month-to-month lease for the past five years. Now, property owner Public Storage wants the site back.

Set on one acre on the southeast corner, the business is a soothing and eye-catching anomaly along busy Ventura Boulevard, remarkable as much for its thick growth of fir trees as for the graceful curves on the statues.

Neighbors fear that most of the trees would be cut down to make way for the warehouse. The building would be two stories, housing 400 to 500 units, said Marvin Lotz, president of Public Storage's management division.

``It would be a shame to lose all those old pine trees,'' said Helen Itria Norman, president of the Tarzana Property Owners Association.

The property is zoned commercial, which allows for a storage warehouse. But the city granted Public Storage a conditional use permit earlier this year to allow two rental trucks and less window space than is normally required for such buildings.

The 600-member homeowners association is appealing the permit.

Lotz insists that the warehouse will fit in nicely with the neighborhood, looking much more like an attractive office building than a storage place.

``I think (neighbors) are going to be pleasantly surprised,'' Lotz said.

Zoning administrator Dan Green said that the building won't have Public Storage's trademark, big orange stripes and will have ``architectural pizazz.''

Green also said that the storage warehouse would draw much less traffic than a strip mall.

``This isn't a Bloomingdale's or Starbucks. I've never seen a line of people waiting to get into their storage units,'' Green said.

Still, hundreds of neighbors have signed petitions in opposition to the project, Norman said. Opponents include City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who plans to speak at the hearing Tuesday.

Opponents need a majority of the five-member board to approve the appeal. Either side may appeal to the City Council, Green said.

The Buksars said they would relocate the business, but a site has not been selected.

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MAP: Site of Garden Statuary on Ventura Blvd