L.A. Urged to Do Its Best to Block North Campus Project at CSUN

A citizens committee has urged the city of Los Angeles to take whatever steps it can to block a $150-million plan to develop the little-used North Campus at California State University, Northridge.

In a report to City Councilman Hal Bernson, the 15-member group also demanded that, if the development cannot be halted, the plans be revised so that educational facilities are built earlier in the 15-year project.

The group, appointed by Bernson, also expressed doubt that the university will abide by its promise to limit the use of commercial facilities in the project to school-related companies.

The report by the North Campus Development Citizens Task Force urged the councilman to “take the appropriate steps to oppose the current plans, including necessary legal action to halt the project, if possible.”

Athletic Stadium Planned

In conjunction with a private developer, the university plans to build more than a dozen projects on the North Campus, including an athletic stadium, hotel, restaurants, student dormitories, office buildings and conference centers.

The 100-acre site is bounded by Devonshire and Plummer streets and Zelzah and Lindley avenues.

The project, tentatively approved by CSUN trustees two weeks ago, is one of the first in the state to combine a private development with a university capital-improvement program. Profits from the commercial parts of the project are to underwrite the construction of university facilities.

State education officials say that, because of cutbacks in state funds for education, major campus expansions can be accomplished only through such joint ventures.

Unlike development on private land, the city has no control over the use of state-controlled land, said Bernson, who represents Northridge. Bernson said Friday that he has “received verbal assurances from university officials that our concerns will be addressed, including many of those in the committee report, so I am waiting to see what they do.”

Appears to Violate Law

The councilman said that if the project appears to violate state law limiting university property to school-related uses, either the city government or local residents could file suit to block the plan.

Chief among the concerns expressed by the group was the possibility that the project will collapse at some point, and “the community will be left with perhaps some student housing and . . . a commercial development that has little to do with the university or its intended purposes.”

Lee K. Alpert, chairman, said that if the project developer, Watt Industries Inc., “finds that halfway through it is failing to make the hoped-for profit, anyone knows they will not continue, and that would leave facilities like the stadium and teaching facilities out of luck.”

Elliot Mininberg, CSUN’s vice president for administration and university advancement, said Friday that, under the timetable tentatively worked out between Watt Industries and the university, school facilities and commercial buildings would be built in an alternating pattern “that starts out with our facilities, the student housing, being built first.”

Thus, even if the project fell apart at mid-point, “the university would not be left out in the cold,” he said. “The developer would suffer more than we would.”

As for fears that renting the project’s 500,000-square feet of office space will not be restricted to university-related firms, Mininberg said that language guaranteeing such a connection between tenants and the school would be difficult to draft.

He declined to guarantee that such language would be included in the final contract with Watt Industries but added: “The definition I am using of university-related tenant invites a broad scope. To some extent, almost any firm is likely to use students as interns or part-time employees or in some other capacity, and is therefore university-related.”