Los Feliz Getting Brighter?

LOS FELIZ—A brighter future may be in store for Hillhurst and Vermont avenues, thanks to a street lighting initiative put forth by the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council (LFNC)’s Public Works and Neighborhood Beautification Committee.

The initiative, which is still in its early planning stages, is called “Brighten up the Village!” and its goal is to illuminate and create a sort of “branding” in Los Feliz’s popular shopping and dining areas, according to Public Works Committee Chair Matthew Luery.

“Vermont and Hillhurst could use a bit of enlivening at night to create a better sense of entering the business district,” said Luery. “You see a lot of this around the holidays…. This would be a year-round thing if possible.”

Luery pointed to business districts in Silver Lake and Burbank as examples of what such a project might look like.

The easiest option, according to Luery, would be to string lights in the trees lining the streets and coordinate with local businesses to plug them in. The business area of Silver Lake Boulevard is lit this way, he said, and the process requires no city permits.

It does, however rely on local business owners to foot the cost of electricity, though Luery said the committee is also looking into solar power for such lights.

More difficult, but still an option, said Luery, is using city posts to “zig-zag” lights overhead across the street, such as in downtown Los Angeles’s Old Bank District. Those, however, would require permits, as well as coordination with the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting and Dept. of Water and Power.

Implementation of either plan won’t be coming anytime soon, said Luery, as the proposal still needs to be brought in front of the LFNC’s governing board.

According to Luery, the Public Works Committee hopes to get the Los Feliz Business Improvement District on board with the project, and jointly present it to the board in the next six months or so.