VAN NUYS >> Henrik Minassians and his partner have spent many nights observing girls in high heels working the streets.

But Minassians isn’t an undercover cop. He’s an urban planner at Cal State Northridge. With CSUN sociologist David Lopez, he’s studying two known prostitution corridors in the northeast San Fernando Valley to see how the man-made environment can be changed — through things like better lighting, “no parking” signs or even re-engineering streets — to dissuade human trafficking.

“A lot of work that we do is surveillance, literally staking out, parking and waiting, watching, driving back and forth and watching” to collect data, said Minassians, an associate professor of urban studies and planning, on a recent balmy night.

Driving his Acura TSX along busy Sepulveda Boulevard, Minassians is armed with dozens of addresses where used condoms, condom boxes or wrappers on the ground have been reported. He points to a nondescript intersection at Sepulveda and Wyandotte Street in Van Nuys where he said prostitutes stand next to a stop sign. The “johns” or patrons who pick up the women there sometimes drive onto Wyandotte and other nearby residential streets to park and do their business, he said.

“The first thing you see here is what? Zero lights, and whatever light they’ve got is covered by the trees so there is no visibility,” which helps patrons avoid detection, he said.

MULTI-PRONGED APPROACH

The CSUN team, which also includes a few undergraduate students, is part of the San Fernando Valley Human Trafficking Task Force formally launched this month to address “the massive influx” of cases that have long plagued Sepulveda and Lankershim boulevards, police said. Los Angeles police and the city are taking a “multi-pronged approach to solving this problem” with experts from CSUN, the City Attorney’s Office, the county District Attorney’s Office and a number of nongovernmental organizations, said Lt. Marc Evans, vice coordinator for Operations-Valley Bureau and the officer in charge of the new task force.

The CSUN team is studying the busy Sepulveda corridor from Roscoe Boulevard to Nordhoff Street in LAPD’s Mission Division and from Saticoy Street to Victory Boulevard in the Van Nuys Division. They’re also studying Lankershim Boulevard between San Fernando Road and Strathern Street in the Foothill Division.

From January through October, 19 pimps and more than 650 patrons and females suspected of engaging in prostitution were arrested in LAPD’s Valley Bureau, Evans said. In less than three weeks, the new Valley task force issued 195 traffic citations to “johns” looking to solicit sex acts, arrested 51 “johns” and made six arrests related to human trafficking, pimping or pandering, Evans said at a Nov. 19 community meeting in Van Nuys.

The idea that urban design can be used to change behavior and deter crime is not new. U.S. architect and city planner Oscar Newman examined how the man-made or built environment and the creation of “defensible space” can affect crime in the early 1970s. But Minassians said it’s the first time someone is examining that environment to reduce or eliminate prostitution.

“It’s pioneering work,” Minassians said.

SOUTH LOS ANGELES

Minassians and his team recently completed a similar study on and around the Figueroa Avenue corridor in South Los Angeles, an area that also has a human trafficking task force. There, they discovered significant code violations such as illegal canopies, graffiti, dumping and junk stored in front yards — including 23 violations on Estrella Avenue between Florence and Gage avenues. They noted that large overgrown trees and other barriers blocked visibility of streets and that the vast majority of crimes there took place in areas with insufficient lighting. They identified “a lack of community ownership” and “a lack of the city maintaining the area.”

Recommendations ranged from small fixes such as improved lighting and better code enforcement to more dramatic changes like eliminating parking on Figueroa, making side streets one-way and creating a center divider on the corridor to make it harder for johns to circle back and pick up sex workers.

The CSUN team offered some “smart, well-thought-out ideas” for South Los Angeles, though city officials are constantly looking for ways to keep streets clean and safe, said Councilman Curren Price of District 9. A portion of his district was included in the study.

Price said in a statement that he has worked closely with the city’s Department of Water and Power and the City Attorney’s Office to improve street lighting, ensure that trees are trimmed and implement other strategies the report mentions, he said. But the team’s input calls attention to the issue, he said, and “provides an opportunity to educate and engage the community and work collectively to come up with viable solutions.”

The South L.A. findings were also presented this summer to Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who was not available for comment.

‘AN ABSOLUTE PRIORITY’

San Fernando Valley Councilwoman Nury Martinez, who has led efforts to combat prostitution, said she intends to fight for funds needed to implement the CSUN team’s recommendations in her district, which includes Van Nuys, Sun Valley and Panorama City. Suggestions such as tree trimming and improved lighting, she said, can be taken care of “immediately.”

“If it’s ‘no parking’ signs, where do we find the resources to put up the signs so there’s no overnight parking?” she said. “I intend to make this an absolute priority.”

Civil engineer Anita O’Connell, who lives in Van Nuys’ Midvale Estates neighborhood, said she believes making such changes is an important piece of the puzzle that’s been missing.

“It’s not just environmental changes; it’s improving the area in general and attracting desirable businesses and getting a handle on post-apocalyptic blight that the Sepulveda corridor looks like,” O’Connell, a mother of two, said following the community meeting earlier this month. “A pimp is not going to drop off a van full of prostitutes in front of a Trader Joe’s. They’ll do it in front of a 99-cent store, or a check cashing or a tire store.”

Stephany Powell of Journey Out, a nonprofit that assists victims out of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation, said she has seen how implementing certain changes can make a difference in a neighborhood. But the former LAPD vice cop said they have to be in conjunction with programs that help get these women out of this dangerous lifestyle.

Otherwise, she said, “all you’re doing is pushing them to other areas.”