Planning Commission OKs Warner Ridge Office Project

Delivering a stunning blow to Woodland Hills homeowners--and a slap at City Councilwoman Joy Picus--Los Angeles planning commissioners Thursday approved construction of a controversial $150-million high-rise project next to a residential neighborhood.

Commission members voted 3 to 2 to allow development of the nine-building Warner Ridge office complex at the northeast corner of De Soto Avenue and Oxnard Street. They rejected pleas by Picus and nearby residents that single-family houses be built on the ridge instead.

Planners praised the 22 1/2-acre proposal as “a quality development” that has built-in safeguards to keep it from causing traffic jams in the adjoining Warner Center area in the western San Fernando Valley.

But opponents, who have spent 30 months fighting the development, warned that it will bring gridlock to nearby streets. They complained that the high-rises will extend Warner Center’s urbanization for the first time beyond its boundaries and into a residential area.

“I’m angry, outraged, appalled by what they did,” Picus said after the commission vote. “This is a very pro-development commission appointed by the mayor. It reflects his pro-development bias.”

Picus vowed to try to overturn the commission action at the City Council--although she acknowledged that it may be difficult to win the eight council votes necessary to do that.

Normally, the council heeds the wishes of the council member in whose district a development is proposed. But Warner Ridge developer Jack Spound has been lobbying the council members, Picus said.

“I think it will be a chore. I will really have to work at it. It won’t be easy,” she said.

She said Councilman Hal Bernson, head of the council’s influential Planning and Environment Committee, has already “dropped hints” that he supports the Warner Ridge proposal.

“I’m just horrified at the commission allowing an intrusion of Warner Center into a single-family neighborhood,” she said. “This was a quality-of-life issue that was ignored by the majority of the commission.”

Dejected leaders of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization said they will continue their opposition when the project’s zone change and general plan amendment come before the council for review. But they wavered on an earlier pledge to fight the project in court if necessary.

“We need eight votes, and we know we have one for sure,” Robert Gross, a vice president of the group, said in reference to Picus’ planned council fight.

But Gross would not speculate about whether his organization would file a lawsuit to block the high-rises. Last week, the group lost a suit that it had filed to prevent development of surplus Pierce College land. This week, the homeowners were asked to pay $58,000 in attorney’s fees that the developer spent in fighting their lawsuit.

Spound said he is confident that changes made during the past two years in his construction plans will protect the adjacent neighborhood of 30-year-old homes.

He said the changes were made at the request of nearby residents, some of whom withdrew their opposition and became supporters of the project during the 2 1/2 years of debate. “We hope the City Council complies with its commission’s recommendation,” said Spound, who is in partnership with the Johnson Wax Development Corp. on the project.

As proposed, the Warner Ridge commercial complex would consist of three seven-story buildings, two five-story structures, one four-story building, one three-story building, a one-story restaurant and a parking structure that would be partially built into the ridge.

The buildings would be positioned so that the ridge would screen them from the view of residents of the nearby Carlton Terrace residential neighborhood. Dirt excavated from the site would be piled into a berm along the northeastern edge of the site to similarly shield next-door Pierce College from the offices.

Approval Welcomed

Thursday’s commission approval was welcomed by college officials. Although they were told last month by the Los Angeles Community College District to stay neutral in the dispute, school officials made it clear that they oppose construction of homes on Warner Ridge because of the potential for homeowner complaints about flies and odors from the campus farm.

Commissioners Suzette Neiman and William R. Christopher voted against the high-rises. Neiman said she believes that the project would destroy the integrity of the city’s effort to cluster tall buildings in the middle of Warner Center. Christopher indicated that he thought that the project was too big.

But Commissioners Theodore Stein Jr. and Fernando Torres-Gil and panel President William G. Luddy praised the Warner Ridge plan. They rejected a suggestion by city planning staff members that the project’s proposed 810,000 square feet of floor space be reduced to 541,700 square feet.

“I believe this is a quality development,” Stein said. “If all projects on Ventura Boulevard had its quality, the dissension we see there week by week wouldn’t be there.”