Planners Delay Vote on Warner Center Hotel

The Los Angeles City Planning Commission postponed a vote Thursday on a developer’s proposal to build a 14-story Hilton Hotel in Woodland Hills’ Warner Center. The commission is scheduled to reconsider the measure on May 30.

The developer, U.S. Hotel Properties Corp., has applied for a conditional-use permit to build the hotel in an area that previously had been designated by the community plan for construction of six-story commercial and industrial structures.

The City Council last year agreed to allow hotels on the east side of Canoga Avenue, between the Ventura Freeway and Victory Boulevard, at the urging of Norman Kravetz, who owns the property where the hotel would be built. The council stipulated that the height of any hotel would be determined when the developer applied for the conditional-use permit.

Kravetz, who has leased the hotel site to the developer, has maintained that the hotel is central to his planned Trillium Woodland Hills project, which includes two 17-story office buildings now under construction.

But the hotel has been opposed by influential Warner Center developer Robert D. Voit, who is building a 17-story Marriott Hotel a few blocks away. In a letter to the Planning Commission, Voit urged denial of the permit on the grounds that Warner Center streets are ill-equipped to handle additional high-rises.

The Hilton Hotel has been opposed by the Woodland Hills Homeowners Assn. but supported by City Councilwoman Joy Picus, who represents the area.

The Planning Department staff has recommended approval of the project, but has suggested that the developer arrange for a shuttle service to Los Angeles International Airport, car pools for employees at Warner Center businesses and flexible work hours for hotel employees.