Creative Solution : Neighbors May Develop Corvallis Site Themselves

Homeowners in Studio City said Wednesday they may turn themselves into do-it-yourself developers to prevent outside builders from cramming condominiums on the abandoned Corvallis High School campus.

Residents said they may form a community cooperative to buy the Laurel Canyon Boulevard site and build 30 luxury homes to preserve the low-density look of their neighborhood.

With their own nonprofit project, residents would be able to pay enough for the land to persuade a religious order to sell it for single-family homes instead of for a more lucrative townhouse project, they said.

“Where there are highly motivated and creative people, there can be creative solutions to problems,” said homeowner Steven K. Sobel, who is helping organize the unusual crusade. “We have a lot of highly motivated and creative people here.”

Homeowners endorsed single-family homes for the 3.6-acre site Tuesday night when they were polled on the issue by the Studio City Residents Assn. They rejected separate proposals for 130 and 100 condominiums and for a 160-unit retirement home.

46-Year-Old School Site

The owners of the 46-year-old school site favor the larger condominium project.

The Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary would make $7 million, plus a percentage of the profits from the sale of the townhouses, if they sell the site for a 130-unit project. The nuns’ original asking price was $9 million.

In contrast, the campus would only fetch about $2 million if zoned for single-family homes and sold to a conventional residential developer.

Sister Joan Treacy pleaded with homeowners Tuesday night to “make a decision that is based on justice” and support condominium zoning when Los Angeles city planners meet April 7 to consider a new land-use designation for the site.

“We do understand the concerns of the residents regarding traffic, density and the desire to enhance the value of their properties,” Treacy said. “To respond to those concerns, we agreed twice to down-size the number of units from a possible 190 to 165, and finally to 130.”

No More Compromised

Because profits from the campus sale will be spent on the order’s ministry, “we cannot, in good conscience, compromise any further,” she told 150 homeowners at the meeting.

If the religious order is denied the zoning it seeks, it may decide to keep the high school site and use it for its ministry or to sell it “for some type of limited development, which would generate less revenue but be more in keeping with our ministry objectives,” Treacy said.

There was scattered support among homeowners for the retirement-home concept and for the possible creation of an AIDS hospice by the nuns.

Elderly inhabitants of a “congregate care center” proposed by Laguna Hills developer Robert H. Brownsberger “wouldn’t drive and wouldn’t make noise,” homeowner Lee Soskin pointed out.

Only three people in the crowd voted for condominiums when residents were polled by homeowner association president Polly Ward. Ward and other leaders of the group earlier had endorsed building up to 104 condominiums on the site.

“We certainly found out how Studio City residents think,” Treacy said after the meeting. “We’ll wait and see what happens next.”

Sobel said formation of a neighborhood coalition to acquire the campus and build $500,000 homes to generate the nuns’ sought-after profit is only one idea that will be explored by homeowners. Others will include acquisition of the defunct high school by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

He said a petition drive to rally support from the neighborhood near the site will be launched this weekend.

“We talked a little with the nuns last night and painted a scenario,” said Sobel, an architect. “The right kind of development is not out of the realm of possibility, although it might be difficult to make their $9 million.

“It will have to be a cooperative effort. We have to use all the opportunities at our fingertips--financial, political and social kinds of direction.”