Pierce Faculty and Community Divided : College’s Views on Warner Ridge Decidedly Mixed

Yes. No. Maybe.

That’s the response from the campus to the question of whether a $150-million high-rise office complex should be built next to Pierce College.

The opinions, in the form of letters, were sent to Los Angeles city planners, who will help decide if a 22-acre commercial project will be constructed on Warner Ridge next to the Woodland Hills school.

The issue has divided the community and the Pierce agriculture faculty because of fears that the high-rises would spur future development of the college’s valuable farmland.

Yes, the offices should be built, concluded Mick Sears, chairman of the Pierce College Agriculture Department. Sears said he was speaking for a majority of the agriculture faculty.

“We feel well-assured about this project,” he wrote, characterizing the nine-building development as “logical and compatible with the educational aspects of the Pierce Farm.”

No, they shouldn’t be built, concluded Richard Skidmore, an Agriculture Department professor.

Of those at the college who support the high-rise plan, “I raise a question of integrity and wonder about the kinds and amounts of remunerations these individuals have received or will receive from this development,” Skidmore wrote.

He described a proposal for the developer to use a small strip of college land for a traffic lane as “blatant impertinence.”

Maybe they should be built and maybe they shouldn’t is the non-conclusion reached by William E. Norlund, the college’s vice president of administration. On one hand, “the majority of the suggestions which the college has made have been incorporated” in the high-rise plan, Norlund wrote.

But, on the other, if the project is to proceed, the college wants flexibility in controlling movement of up to 280,000 cubic yards of dirt onto the campus and would like guarantees of a careful phasing of construction, he wrote.

Public Stand Promised

By failing to either endorse or condemn the project, Norlund’s letter is likely to frustrate both supporters and opponents of the development. College officials had promised to take a public stand on the project when the city’s public hearings began.

The supporters contend that the development will be compatible with the college because existing hills and new earthen berms will shield the college from any view of the offices, several of which would be seven stories high.

The opponents complain that much of Warner Ridge would be dug up and deposited as fill on Pierce land. They argue that the high density of the development would put new pressure on the Los Angeles Community College District to sell the Pierce Farm for future development.

College President David Wolf was unavailable Monday to clarify the college’s official position. Two weeks ago, however, he voiced hope that the college would not “get caught in any cross fire” over the project.

“I’ve said quite publicly that the college administration did not plan to become entangled in the debate taking place in the community” by keeping its position quiet “until the hearing process” takes place, Wolf said.

The letters from the college are among about 600 cards and letters received by city officials, who opened public hearings on the Warner Ridge development issue two weeks ago.

City planning officials say numerous additional public hearings on the project will be held by the Planning Department and City Council.

City officials closed the first phase of hearings Friday by gathering written comments on the project.

That followed a heated public hearing July 14 at Parkman Junior High School in Woodland Hills, at which time more than 50 of the 400 people who attended signed up to testify.

“We haven’t begun yet to go through the responses,” Robert Heredia, a city planner reviewing the Warner Ridge proposal, said Monday.