A petition circulated among Chatsworth and Northridge business communities was submitted this week demanding that City Councilman Mitchell Englander take “immediate action” to address the rise in homeless encampments and RVs in the area’s industrial business parks.

The petition was started by real estate broker Scott Caswell. He said the more than 600 signatures collected reflect the severity of a situation that has blindsided many business park owners and tenants.

Caswell submitted the petition to Englander’s office on Tuesday, urging city officials to take “immediate action” to deal with the issue.

“We are seeking a remedy for the blight, unsanitary conditions, property theft and business disruption that is adversely affecting not only our businesses but the economy of the San Fernando Valley,” the cover letter of the petition said. “We cannot preserve and grow the economy of our beloved San Fernando Valley if our employees do not feel safe when they come to work and our businesses are plagued by theft and vandalism.”

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Business tenants and owners of industrial parks in Chatsworth and Northridge have experienced a sudden rise in homeless people setting up semi-permanent vehicle dwellings in their area, ever since the city enacted a law earlier this year banning people from living out of vehicles throughout most of the city — while allowing them on most commercial and industrial streets, according to Caswell.

Because of that law, the business parks in the Valley communities have turned into “a giant RV park for the homeless,” Caswell said.

“It hit so quickly,” Caswell said. The law “got thrown on our laps about eight months ago, and there’s been a deluge of RV camping and abuse, and it went out of control.”

The law “was not well thought out because now they’ve impacted those tenants and owners and employees,” he said.

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And the situation is hitting pocket books, with “owners incurring costs to try to rectify this themselves,” Caswell said.

Some business park owners have responded by removing hedges and bushes where homeless people have been using as sleeping areas. But tenants continue to demand more. They have been asking for flood lights, gates and other security measures be installed, and even threatening to leave the area, Caswell said.

Some businesses have also resorted to more questionable tactics. Caswell said he is confident that a recent incident in which a curb in an industrial area was illegally painted red had been the work of fed-up business owners and tenants attempting to deal with the influx of RVs.

“I totally get it,” he said. “I’ve had some owners that are so frustrated, it’s scary. They may take things too far, and they shouldn’t have to.”

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Englander responded to the petition Wednesday, saying he voted against the law allowing vehicle dwelling in industrial and commercial areas. He felt it would have a disproportionate effect on his district, and it would not get at the “underlying causes of our city’s homelessness crisis.”

He said he has worked to fund “additional overtime for the LAPD HOPE team, sanitation crews, and parking enforcement.”

“While residents are understandably fed up with a problem that continues to grow in scope year after year, I’m determined to continue tackling the issue so that the current crisis never becomes the status quo,” he said.

According to Englander aides, in the past two months, clean-ups have ramped up and outreach workers are making contact with homeless individuals more often. In October, there were 146 contacts with homeless individuals and 65 cleanups, as the result of a program the councilman announced this summer dubbed Neighborhood FIRST. Previously there was a dozen monthly cleanups and 34 contacts with homeless individuals, on average.

Funds allocated to the district were also used to for parking enforcement, and parking restrictions were established, according to Englander’s office.

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While the councilman’s office has increased its efforts, they may be insufficient, especially with the likelihood that funding for the encampments clean-ups will eventually “dry up,” Caswell said.

He said he has heard talk of various ideas, such as setting up safe-parking zones or showers for the homeless, but things are not moving fast enough.

“I’m not disputing that it’s complicated, but I think there needs to be a more productive focus, a little more aggressive action,” he said.

Caswell added that “all of the owners — the (industrial park) companies as well as tenants — all recognize the homeless problem needs to be solved for them too,” referring to the homeless individuals. It might mean more focus on services or initiatives such as creating designated areas for people to park their vehicle dwellings, and setting up bathrooms to alleviate some of the sanitation issues, he said.

The money spent on those efforts “is going to be well served, versus the damage it is creating for the business community, that is the tax base here,” he said.