Homeowner Coalition Backs Warner Ridge Plan

A coalition of Woodland Hills homeowners has decided to support a proposed high-rise office project that would be next to their neighborhoods, residents said Wednesday.

Members of the Concerned Carlton Terrace Homeowners called the seven-building Warner Ridge project proposed for the northeast corner of Oxnard Street and De Soto Avenue “the best development scenario which has ever been considered for this property,” said group leader Tom Friedman.

Friedman said 40 homeowners in Carlton Terrace, a subdivision of single-family homes east of the project site, have joined about 65 homeowners in the Warner Hill condominium development south of the site in supporting the project.

Other residents in the Carlton Terrace area have joined the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, which is vigorously opposing the office project.

The Warner Ridge development would include structures up to seven stories high. Officials of the Sound Co. and the Johnson Wax Development Corp., whose firms are planning the project, have promised that the ridge itself will screen the offices from homes and from nearby Pierce College.

In a related development, project planners on Wednesday released details of a new traffic-control plan for the site, which includes a restriction on left turns from southbound De Soto onto Oxnard as a way of minimizing congestion around the office complex.

In a letter to homeowners, the developers said their traffic restrictions “would result in a significant reduction in traffic through Carlton Terrace.”

Public hearings on the development and the traffic plan have not been announced by Los Angeles planning officials.