Westwood Village Improvement Association recap – Aug. 17

The Westwood Village Improvement Association is a nonprofit organization tasked with improving the state of Westwood Village. Property and business owners created the association in 2011 to provide the Village with functions the city of Los Angeles could not provide. Its board of directors meets monthly.

• Eric Geier, community relations manager for the LA County Metro, said Metro will begin to relocate utilities, including water pipelines, electrical lines and gas lines near the subway route of the Purple Line Extension in early 2018. He added that construction will begin in 2019 or 2020 and should be completed by 2026.

• Geier also said that since LA will host the 2028 Olympic Games, rather than the 2024 Games, Metro will be able to plan its construction around busy traffic lanes and keep additional lanes open during construction.

• The board appointed John Heidt, owner of Heidt Torres Co., a real estate agency, to serve in a Zone 1 seat on the board of directors.

• The board appointed Kifishia Kawachi, owner of Sepi’s and Flame Broiler, as the board’s secretary. Kawachi currently serves on the association’s Clean, Safe and Beautiful Committee.

• The board approved a new branding system for Westwood Village, which will include images from iconic architecture in the Village, like the Janss Dome and the Fox Theater. Residents and visitors to the Village will soon see this branding on light pole banners and recycling and trash cans.

• Andrew Thomas, executive director of the WWIA, said staff members started trimming all of the trees within the association’s boundaries on Monday. Thomas said it will take several weeks for them to trim the 500 trees in the Village.

• The board approved a recommendation from the Business Attraction & Retention Committee to ask Los Angeles City Council District 5 and the City of Los Angeles Planning Department to amend the Westwood Village Specific Plan.Thomas said the specific plan imposes caps on the number of fast food establishments and sit-down restaurants the Village may have and does not clearly define each type of business He added that this has made it difficult for businesses to rent in the Village.

• Jessica Dabney, chair of the association’s board of directors, led a discussion on association board officer term limits and whether bylaws indicate certain board members have exceeded them. However, the board decided to shelve the topic for the next board meeting.