Council Won’t Fight Suit, Lets Warner Center Hilton Proceed

The Hilton Hotel development in Warner Center is on again.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday voted not to fight a suit that challenges a Planning Commission action that would have blocked the controversial project.

The council’s move was based on the advice of Gary Netzer, assistant city attorney, who called indefensible the Planning Commission’s denial last week of a one-year extension of a permit for the luxury hotel.

After the 11-0 vote, commission President Dan Garcia charged that the city attorney’s advice “smacks of pressure from the developer and the councilwoman of the district.”

Councilwoman Joy Picus, who lobbied hard to get approval of the project, denied that she applied any pressure on the city attorney’s office. “Dan Garcia has an active imagination,” she said.

One-Year Extension

The council action effectively grants U.S. Hotel Properties Corp. a one-year extension to begin construction of the 14-story, 340-room hotel.

The commission last Thursday refused to grant an extension of the previously approved conditional use permit for the project. Longtime city officials said they could not recall the commission ever refusing to grant such an extension.

On Friday, U.S. Hotel Properties filed suit, challenging the commission’s action. The suit cited a section of the Los Angeles Municipal Code that requires the commission to grant an extension if a developer can show that a delay in construction was unavoidable.

U.S. Hotel Properties said the delay was caused by the city’s requirement that the developer prepare a plan for easing traffic congestion.

The suit contended that commissioners voted against the permit without consideration of the reason for the delay because they dislike the project.

Tradition of Deferring

On Wednesday, Picus brought the matter to the full council. Before the vote, she walked around the council chambers, reminding her colleagues of the body’s tradition of deferring to the council member in whose district a project is located.

During the meeting, several council members sharply criticized the commission for denying the extension, despite an earlier opinion from the city attorney’s office that it had no authority to do so.

Wachs called the commission action “a blatant abuse of discretion” and chided the commissioners for exposing taxpayers to costly litigation “for its pique.”

“We’re very lucky to be getting off this easy,” Wachs said. “If I were the plaintiff, I’d sue the city for damages.”

A representative of the developer said the council’s action settles the matter as far as the developer is concerned.

Garcia last Thursday said he opposed the extension because the hotel developer “had relied on council from the very beginning to approve the project, no matter what the commission thought.”

Fight Over

On Wednesday, Garcia, a lawyer who was appointed to the commission by Mayor Tom Bradley and confirmed by the council, conceded that the fight was over.

“The council should not be particularly proud of their approval of the project, since they had to circumvent the community participation process and the Planning Commission to do it,” he said.

Garcia contended that the project conflicts with the Warner Center development plan, which was prepared with community participation. The plan calls for the area’s commercial core to be west of Canoga Avenue. The Hilton site is on the east side of Canoga, south of Victory Boulevard.

“It just seems to be there are some members of the council who do not respect the independence of the commission,” Garcia said. “We’ve always tried to address the merits of this case, and my concern was about the integrity of the process.”

The hotel project had been the subject of an intense lobbying battle between Norman Kravetz, a principal in the Hilton development, and a rival developer, Robert Voit, who sought to stop the project. Marriott Corp. recently opened a hotel on property owned by Voit near the Hilton site.

The settlement authorized by the council still must be approved by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, but approval is considered routine.