Lake Balboa is awash with angst as residents living around it find themselves suffering from a bizarre identity crisis.
Homeowners in the community near the center of the San Fernando Valley have been stunned to learn that "Lake Balboa" doesn't exist -- even though city signs designating that name for the area have been posted for the last five years at their neighborhood's boundaries.
The name mix-up was discovered when residents of an adjoining residential area petitioned the city to also change their community's name from Van Nuys to Lake Balboa.
City leaders acknowledged this week that the Lake Balboa community designation was never officially authorized. Instead, City Councilman Dennis Zine merely instructed street workers in 2002 to post the blue community signs as a courtesy to residents.
Councilman Richard Alarcon, chairman of the council's Education and Neighborhoods Committee, warned that those who boast of having a Lake Balboa address could risk fraud charges if they list that location when selling their homes.
"There is no Lake Balboa, " Alarcon told residents at a community meeting this week.
Adding to the controversy, the real Lake Balboa -- a 27-acre Sepulveda Flood Control Basin pond filled with treated wastewater -- isn't in Lake Balboa either.
Or in Van Nuys, for that matter.
It's in Encino. And residents there are none too pleased that Van Nuys homeowners have attempted to appropriate the Lake Balboa name.
The debate marks another twist in the long tradition of neighborhood name changing that started in the San Fernando Valley in the 1980s.
In many cases, the changes involve upscale neighborhoods trying to shed what residents consider the unwanted baggage of older communities. Valley Village and West Toluca Lake broke off from North Hollywood, while Valley Glen seceded from Van Nuys and West Hills from Canoga Park.
Lake Balboa would be another secession from Van Nuys. Residents living in an area roughly bounded by the 405 Freeway on the east, the Los Angeles River on the south, Roscoe Boulevard on the north and White Oak Avenue have lobbied for the name change as a way of unifying the area politically and improving property values.
They contend that the freeway effectively cuts their neighborhoods off from the rest of Van Nuys, the site of the Valley's first subdivision. A Lake Balboa address would distance them from the gritty reputation that Van Nuys sometimes suffers, they argue.
