GRANADA HILLS : Residents to Appeal Mall, Office Plan

A developer’s plan to build a shopping mall and office complex in Granada Hills has awakened the wrath of residents in this quiet neighborhood of homes and horse pastures.

Homeowners near the proposed Richard J. Mazurek Living Trust project at 17900 Sesnon Blvd. have packed land-use hearings, submitted petitions and organized phone-call campaigns to stave off the development. So far, the virulence of the opposition has helped sway a city zoning official to call for limitations of the complex, but the neighbors say that’s not enough.

Today they will appeal to the city Planning Commission to kill the project. The commission will consider the homeowners’ appeal of a proposed subdivision of the property, and also the trust’s request to rezone from residential to commercial. The panel will meet this morning at the Sherman Oaks Woman’s Club at 4808 Kester Ave.

“It’s totally out of character for this neighborhood,” said Jan Subar, a member of Homeowners of Upper Granada Hills. “We think it will bring in excess traffic, loitering, graffiti, drunkenness--all the things you see around shopping centers here.”

The Mazurek trust has proposed building a supermarket, day-care center and two-story office in a single 84,000-square-foot mall on the 11-acre parcel, said John Parker, a zoning official who reviewed the case.

Officials with the trust, and its representative, Spectrum Land Planning Inc. of Simi Valley, could not be reached for comment.

After reviewing the case earlier this year, Parker recommended that the project be severely curtailed. Citing community opposition, traffic concerns and the Granada Hills-Knollwood district plan, which calls for residential and mild commercial uses in the area, Parker told the trust that the offices and day-care center could remain but all plans for retail uses on the property should be scrapped.

The commission will review Parker’s recommendation, then send its own to the City Council.