Scrapped Study Leaves Plans in Air : Van Nuys: It contained a recommendation that a million square feet of office and industrial space be developed on vacant aviation field property.

The abrupt cancellation by Los Angeles airport commissioners of a yearlong study of development proposals for the much-disputed vacant Air National Guard property at Van Nuys Airport has left homeowners and airport officials wondering what will happen next.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what we will do now,” said Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners member Sam Greenberg, who joined three fellow commissioners late Wednesday in a unanimous vote to halt the study.

The vote stunned airport staff members but delighted homeowners, who had mounted a fierce attack on a proposal for a massive office and industrial complex at the 94-acre site.

Commissioners did not give any reason for their vote to the crowd of more than 50 residents and aircraft owners and operators.

The disputed site is in the northwest corner of the airport, east of Balboa Boulevard and south of Roscoe Boulevard. Although some of the land has been vacant for years, about two-thirds of it became available for development two months ago when the Air National Guard moved to Point Mugu.

Consultants had recommended that 1 million square feet of office and industrial space be developed there, yielding an estimated $4.7 million a year in lease income to the Department of Airports.

The plan also would have set aside 10 acres for a park and aviation museum--about the only part of the proposal that was welcomed by nearby residents.

Lee Kanon Alpert, chairman of the airport’s Citizens Advisory Council and a leading opponent of the consultants’ plan, on Thursday called the yearlong study a fiasco.

He said that the airport staff could have “avoided this terrible waste of money if they had listened to the community instead of just plowing ahead with their high-intensity development plan.”

Airport spokesman Lee Nichols said that P&D; Technologies, the consultants, had been paid $337,000 to develop eight alternative plans for the site, including the one recommended to the board in April.

Alpert also said that the consultants’ plans were a “useless pile of proposals that will never be built.”

But Greenberg disagreed, saying, “They aren’t necessarily useless. It remains to be seen whether they will ultimately be scrapped or taken up in some form.”

Charles Zeman, Van Nuys Airport manager, also disputed Alpert’s assertion.

“I don’t think they are useless,” he said. “You have to explore alternatives before you select something.”

Zeman said he could not determine from commissioners’ comments at Wednesday’s meeting what the board wanted the staff to do next.

“As far as I can tell, we are back to ground zero with no recommended plan and no signposts to guide us,” he said.

The plan has been under an increasingly dark cloud in recent months, particularly since April when Councilman Hal Bernson became the first council member to take a position on the issue.

Bernson said the council is “not going to support 1 million square feet of offices across the street from these homes” that border the site on the west.

Bernson’s position was viewed as possibly crucial by some airport staff officials because his district borders the airport and because he is chairman of the council’s influential Planning and Land Use Committee.

Any development plan finally approved by the airport board must also be approved by the council and by the Federal Aviation Administration.