Committee Backs Warner Center Hotel, Along With High-Rise Curbs

An influential Los Angeles City Council committee Tuesday night voted to prohibit any new large buildings in Warner Center unless the developers reduce the impact of their projects on traffic.

The surprise vote in support of a building moratorium of sorts came as a divided Planning and Environment Committee recommended that the full council approve construction of a proposed Hilton Hotel in Warner Center.

Support for the hotel’s construction was based on a commitment by Norman Kravetz, who owns the land on which the 14-story, 340-room hotel would be built, to pay a fee--the amount was not yet determined--for transportation improvements. The improvements could include widening of streets or establishment of shuttle buses.

Finn Backs Hotel, With Strings

Chairman Howard Finn, who had been leaning against supporting the project, voted to back it. But he insisted on the condition that anyone else building a large project in Warner Center be required to offset the effect of the project on transportation.

City planners are preparing a so-called transportation management plan for Warner Center that would tie new development to transportation improvements around the West San Fernando Valley commercial center. A similar plan is being prepared for congested Ventura Boulevard.

Councilwoman Joy Picus, who appeared before the committee to support the Hilton project, said she does not believe a moratorium in Warner Center, which is in her district, is necessary because she knows of no large projects in the offing. Picus said she will take no position on the moratorium when it comes before the full council.

The proposed moratorium, as well as the issue of the hotel’s construction, is scheduled to go before the full council Tuesday.

Supporting the hotel besides Finn was Councilman Robert Farrell. Councilwoman Pat Russell voted against granting a permit for the hotel’s construction.

The hotel issue has prompted an extraordinary lobbying battle between rival Valley developers.

Developer Robert Voit has sought to stop the project. Marriott Corp. is building a 17-story, 470-room hotel on land owned by Voit about one mile from the proposed site of the Hilton Hotel on Canoga Avenue south of Victory Boulevard.

The committee, on Sept. 10, put off until Tuesday its vote on a recommendation to the full council on whether to allow the hotel.

The committee’s hesitancy came amid the intense behind-the-scenes lobbying battle. With millions of dollars at stake, the two sides hired teams of high-powered lobbyists, including Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, a former congresswoman and former Los Angeles County supervisor, and former Councilman Robert M. Wilkinson, to argue their cases privately to council members.

Norm Emerson, an executive with Voit’s development firm and a former aide to Mayor Tom Bradley, said that Voit opposes the hotel’s construction because it violates the master plan for Warner Center, which calls for the concentration of high-rise buildings in the core of the 1,100-acre area between Canoga Avenue and Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Emerson said that, because Voit is only leasing the land for the proposed Marriott Hotel, he has nothing to gain financially from the city’s refusal to allow construction of another hotel.