Fig. 5 - Centers, Sustainable Community Strategy 26 Page WWW.NORTHEASTSTRATEGY.ORG services. This will require pro-active intervention SECTION 4 - PLANNING TARGETS in order to help re-establish the full array of goods, Northeast San Fernando Valley Opportunities services and amenities sought by local residents. Given the extensive size and population of the The selection of Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima, Northeast Valley, the selection of initial target areas between Laurel Canyon Boulevard and San Fer- is key to the potential success of the endeavor. nando Road (Figure 11), is consistent with the Often the areas of greatest challenge are also the “Great Streets” program in the City of Los Angeles, areas of greatest opportunity. and with the Urban Land Institute’s “Healthy Cor- The project team selected fi ve initial “centroids” ridors” targets. It is a classic Southern California based on their profi le as centers, their proximity to “main street” and serves as the backbone for the existing or proposed transportation, their zoning, Pacoima Center TOD. This is an excellent oppor- or in the case of Sun Valley’s landfi lls and heavy tunity to demonstrate the importance of strategic industrial lands, their environmental challenges. civic, government and community alliances. For analysis, in each case the relevant study area The Panorama Mall and Shopping Area (Figure 13) adopted is a half-mile radius or band catchment came into being in the 1960s, one of the fi rst major area around each centroid. (Figure 5) shopping centers in the Southern California. Com- plementary shops occupied both sides of Van Nuys The half-mile distance has become accepted for Boulevard, and several square blocks with parcels gauging a transit station’s catchment area in the that are unusually deep. Over time, the mall was United States and is the de facto standard for the enclosed and stores were added. planning of U.S. Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs). This radius is loosely based on the dis- The original Broadway anchor was joined by a tance that people are willing to walk to transit. J.W. Robinsons, Montgomery Ward, and Orbachs, among others. The Macerich company recently sold Results support the use of a 0.5-mile catchment the Panorama Mall to Primestor, an aggressive area around transit for employment and population. company specializing in development and manag- It may turn out to be somewhat less for shopping ing properties in urban areas. and errands. These are good starting points for considering transit-oriented land use policy or col- The east side of the street features three major lecting labor-intensive data.1 blocks of inline stores, all with parking in the rear. And further to the north, in the second row, lies The selection of the Sylmar/San Fernando Metro- Plaza del Valle, an outdoor Latino-oriented market- link Station (Figure 7) is consistent with Metro’s place. The long-abandoned and boarded up Pan- round of grants to cities with planning zoning orama Towers offi ce building has recently been sold jurisdiction over the areas surrounding Metrolink and is undergoing renovation as well. Stations. The Sun Valley Remediation Area (Figure 14) is The City of San Fernando covers roughly half the the most environmentally challenged, and is com- area around the station and was awarded a grant posed of decommissioned landfi lls, storage areas, for the creation of a “Station Area Plan” to better auto wrecking, and heavy industry. The long-term accommodate Transit-Oriented Development. This potential of repurposing some of these properties is station will also be the terminus of the proposed excellent. East Valley Transit Corridor, making it an ideal TOD prospect. It would be useful to have a complementary plan for the semi-circle in the City of Los Angeles as well. Because of their proximity, the Metrolink Station half-mile radius falls almost entirely within in the San Fernando Road and Mall Area TOD centroid (Figure 9). The Mall portion of San Fernando Road already has a hardscape in place that can be en- hanced at minimal expense. Over the past several decades, the tenant mix on San Fernando Road has lost some of its appeal by no longer offering a complete array of goods and 1 Guerra, Erick; Cervero, Robert; Tischler, Daniel “Half-Mile Circle- Does It Best Represent Transit Station Catchments?” Transportation The San Fernando Mall already has the necessary configuration for Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, a Transit-Oriented District, but is in need of intervention to become a 1981 complete street with a balanced tenant mix REVISION 4 - JUNE 2016 Page 27 Northeast Valley housing and industry, with the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains in the background to ensure that signifi cant numbers of housing units ROFILE OF ARGET REAS P T A are added that would be affordable for senior citi- Opportunities Abound zens and workforce. METROLINK STATION AREA The bottom chart on the Metrolink Station profi le The Sylmar/San Fernando Metrolink Station area is is perhaps the most instructive. It shows worker- a relatively low-density employment location at this employer balance for the neighborhood surrounding time. There are just 822 jobs in the immediate area the Metrolink Station. Specifi cally, if a line is above of the station, while there are some 3,250 residents the zero axis, it indicates how many more residents who are currently employed. The current employer work in an industry than are employed in that indus- base in the area engages a somewhat older profi le try. It serves as a crude indicator of areas where an than the resident worker population provides, and employer, if they were to relocate to the community, nearly a third of the local jobs (32 percent) are in would have ready access to a very local labor pool manufacturing, with another 17 percent in construc- with immediate proximity to their business. So the tion. These sectors account for half of all employ- largest of the lines above the line represent areas ment in the area, and retail trade only accounts for that community leaders should target in their plan- 8.3 percent. ning as they build out the Station Area Plan. Creat- ing opportunity for employment in these sectors is Examining the workforce profi le of the local resi- most likely to generate the greatest opportunities dents, there are a signifi cant number (more than for gains in sustainability. one in eight), who currently work in retail. The Station Area Plan needs to create and attract new SAN FERNANDO ROAD AND MALL AREA TOD retail employers and will also create a concomitant The chart at the bottom of the San Fernando Labor opportunity for employment of these local resi- Market Characteristics diagram shows two types dents. Another area with signifi cant employment by of opportunities. The fi rst two roughly parallel those residence is health care and social assistance. As identifi ed in the discussion of the Sylmar/San Fer- plans go forward to develop new housing around nando Metrolink Station area. Specifi cally, as the the immediate station area, efforts should be made 28 Page WWW.NORTHEASTSTRATEGY.ORG HQTA areas are rezoned and developed, particular Large cohorts of the residents in the area currently emphasis should be focused on creating new retail work in manufacturing, retail trade, and health ser- and health care, and social assistance opportuni- vices, so new employment opportunities along the ties, which show as large net positive lines on the corridor that emphasize these sectors would very chart, as an outlet for the unaddressed demands for easily fi nd employable residents who would meet those types of career opportunities. The shortfalls their workforce requirements. identifi ed in these sectors represent an opportunity to access a local labor market for the new positions Waste management and recycling also accounts for that will become available. a signifi cant number of the employed residents. But, many of those jobs are likely concentrated near the This diagram, however, also includes several landfi ll operations further south in Sun Valley. large negative employment shortfalls, especially in manufacturing—that is to say, sectors where there This is a case, however, where being in a High are local employment opportunities, but the local Quality Transit Area (HQTA) can allow these work- residents in the workforce do not show patterns of ers to specialize in that nearby industry while living employment. These, too, represent an opportuni- in Pacoima—as long as the connection down San ty—an opportunity, through education, development Fernando Road is reliable and available at the of skillsets, training and specialized industry pro- times necessary to accommodate the demands of grams to retrain and retool local workers to be able the industry. to work in those jobs well into the future. SUN VALLEY REMEDIATION AREA An effective workforce development center co- While the jobs in the area are largely in manufac- located in these areas and working in partnership turing (29.9 percent), construction and wholesale with the actual fi rms, would create short, medium, trade (11.8 percent each), and transportation and and long-term employment opportunities for local warehousing (10.3 percent), the workforce is em- residents to pursue. With a surge in development in ployed in predominantly heath care and social as- the region, builders, if properly encouraged, could sistance (15.3 percent), retail trade (12.5 percent) also hire more local workers thus decreasing trans- and manufacturing (12.2 percent). portation demand and congestion. This represents a perfect opportunity for local Workforce Investment Sun Valley is one of the areas where the income Boards, The Valley Economic Alliance, the Valley mismatch appears the greatest, with some 47.8 Economic Development Center, and similar organi- percent of the jobs paying more than $40,000 a zations.