Too Late to Testify on High-Rise, Homeowners Told

Woodland Hills homeowners got their first look Monday night at the design of a $150-million high-rise office project proposed for a ridge next to their neighborhood.

But residents were jolted to learn that they may have already had their last chance to testify against the project before planning commissioners vote on the developer’s request for a rezoning.

Los Angeles city officials said public testimony will not be allowed at a Nov. 20 hearing, when planning commissioners are scheduled to vote on the rezoning. The seven-building, 22-acre project requires a high-density commercial zoning designation; the existing zoning is for agriculture and residential use only.

The Woodland Hills homeowners have been protesting about the project since Oct. 6, when 75 of them crowded into a city zoning hearing to argue against it and complain that they had been kept in the dark about the proposal. Afterward, 700 residents signed petitions opposing the project.

Crowded Workshop

Monday evening, more than 200 residents who live east of Warner Center near the project site attended a workshop session set up by city officials who are eager to reach a compromise between the homeowners and the developers.

The proposal calls for the clustering of seven office buildings on a ridge at the northeast corner of DeSoto Avenue and Oxnard Street. The proposed buildings would range up to seven stories in height.

Homeowners viewed photographs and drawings showing that the office buildings would be visible from many backyards. Traffic diagrams showed that nine Woodland Hills intersections will have to be redesigned to accommodate the 3,000 cars that the project will attract daily.

Developer Jack Spound assured residents that the project’s planners will consider “all positive critiques and criticisms” of the project.

But city planner Marc Woersching told the homeowners that no further public hearings are planned before planning commissioners vote on Spound’s zoning request. He suggested that the residents send their ideas in writing to a city zoning hearing officer who will make a recommendation to the commission.

“All this is a big, fat public relations effort,” said Ruth Abel, a homeowner who has led opposition to the project.

Demand for New Hearing

Abel said residents will demand that a new public hearing be scheduled so they can argue that the site should be developed with condominiums or houses instead of office buildings.

Other homeowners said they will seek assurances that traffic for the project is routed around their 1,300-home neighborhood and that office-tenant parking is prohibited on their streets if the city allows the high-rises to be built. Spound, who is a partner with the Johnson’s Wax Development Co. of Racine, Wis., in the project, pledged that such steps will be taken.

The residents complained that only a handful of them in the neighborhood of one square mile were told in advance of the zone-change hearing. They also argued that their 25-year-old neighborhood was inadequately represented on a special advisory committee set up by the city earlier this year to review the project proposal.

Areas of Compromise

Neighborhood leaders have met privately with Spound to discuss possible areas of compromise. Last week, some 300 homeowners met to map strategy in the event that a compromise cannot be reached.

West Valley City Councilwoman Joy Picus, who set up Monday’s meeting after receiving the homeowners’ petitions, has promised to consider what she called residents’ “legitimate” concerns over traffic congestion.

But she has defended the project’s proposed density and disputed residents’ contention that they have been left out of the project review until now. Picus did not attend Monday night’s meeting, although members of her staff were there.

“I think we’re being railroaded by the city on this project,” said homeowner Marlene Ricigliano after she examined the pictures and blueprints. “Every window in my town house is going to overlook this project.”