The Valley should be more than a haven for the haves.

THERE'S a house for sale in what used to be a section of North Hollywood that now has the trendy name of West Toluca Lake. It's a nice neighborhood but it's north of Ventura Boulevard--certainly not a place of estate homes. The houses are pretty close together and not that large.

This particular house is a good property but nothing you'd pay a million dollars for--so it seems. Well, think again. The asking price is $995,000.

When I heard about this place last week, it really smacked me in the face just how drastic the housing situation has gotten in the Valley. About as extreme as it can get. It appears that somebody could be willing to pay a million bucks for the North Hollywood house while at the same time thousands of other people are finding it nearly impossible to locate an affordable apartment let alone buy their American Dream home here.

As we focus on the Valley's residential real estate industry in our special report this issue, it's a good time to take stock of where we're really at in terms of the much talked about affordable housing dilemma we have.

The price of housing is extreme one may say. But there really isn't anything wrong with it. Purely market forces at work. Too many people chasing too few properties. The market takes care of itself. Shows you that we live in a very desirable place where people pay good money to enjoy our lifestyle.

But the fact that there are only high-priced properties both for sale and for lease is wrong, and we need some action fast to take care of the problem. Seems we have a lot of plans out there and a lot of talk, but let's get down to business.

Perhaps last week's release of a report on Valley housing prepared by Pepperdine University, the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley and the Economic Research Center at CSUN may provide an organized push for action. The study, which was sponsored by the Southland Regional Association of Realtors, Assembly Speaker Emeritus Robert Hertzberg and The Gas Co. has some excellent ideas that planners and developers should jump on.

Focusing on the idea of urban villages, the plan's elements seem well-suited for the Valley. Urban villages pack the population into dense--but livable--neighborhoods where retail coexists with housing, there's good public transportation nearby and they're also a place where pedestrians can move around safely. Grabbing onto the idea of urban villages makes it necessary that everyone look kindly to the idea of mixed-use developments where retail is built on the ground floor and residential housing is put above. You see this now at Paseo Colorado in Pasadena and to a certain extent in Burbank--centers where there's housing, shopping and entertainment all within a relatively small area.

So where can we start in the Valley to do this? Joel Kotkin, one of the author's of the Pepperdine report perhaps put it best. Let's redesign some of those awful strip malls that seem to be everywhere. You can still keep some retail there but let's put it to better use by also creating residential space in what are now just plots of stucco and concrete that sit empty after business hours.

Solving the affordable housing problem is going to take a whole different mindset about where we live. The Valley, once just a suburban bedroom to L.A. with grid-like streets lined with houses, has become a very complicated place. It used to be an area where there was a lot of space in which to play. But now the space is filled up and it's time to do such things as put residences over retail and reconfigure that simple grid pattern so everybody can live where they want to--whether it be in a house on a tree-lined street or in an apartment in a shopping area next to convenient public transportation.

The urban village idea is a good plan and we should move on it.

Real Estate Awards

This Business Journal issue contains a special report which includes the profiles of 25 people in the residential real estate industry--real estate agents and brokers, mortgage lenders, title and escrow officers. We term them the "best" in the business.

Those 25 people came out of a list of 100 nominees that we compiled from formal nominations sent to me after we asked for them in the past several issues of the paper. Some of the nominees were found as the editorial staff canvassed people in the industry through phone calls. We put people on the list of 100 who were cited by their colleagues and clients as being among other things exemplary in their professionalism, productivity and customer service. As we asked industry professionals who were the best in the business, some of the same people kept being mentioned. Many of these people made the list of the 25 finalists. This list of 25 also contains people who are considered leaders in their fields because of their knowledge of the business, their work in promoting the industry or among other things their astounding productivity in closing deals.

Out of the thousands of real estate professionals in the greater Valley area, choosing just 25 to profile was difficult. But we feel these particular people illustrate what makes up a successful real estate professional.

Business Journal Editor Jason Schaff can be reached at [phone] or at: [e-mail].