Group Drops Retirement Village Plan for Pierce Site

Bowing to neighbors’ complaints, a Jewish group dropped plans Thursday to build a retirement village on a 17 1/2-acre site leased from Pierce College in Woodland Hills.

Leaders of the Shir-Chadash Reform congregation said they instead will develop 25 luxury homes on the site, which adjoins the land where they intend to build a $4-million temple next year.

The 400-member congregation had hoped to use profits from subleasing part of the site to a retirement home developer to help pay for the new temple and for the cost of the lease.

The temple leased the property three years ago from the Los Angeles Community College District for 75 years for a total of $3 million. The land--at Victory Boulevard and Topham Street, a block east of the main Pierce campus--had been declared surplus by college trustees.

Private Developer

Temple officials said they now hope to work with a private developer who will construct homes that will sell in the $750,000 range. The houses will be built on 12 acres now zoned for half-acre lots.

But Shir-Chadash leaders acknowledged that it may be difficult to market expensive houses on leased land that home purchasers will not own.

“These problems are ours,” said Gary Riches, a Tarzana developer who is heading the temple’s construction committee. “We have to deal with it. We’ll wrestle with it. We think it’s doable.”

Rabbi Steven Jacobs said only 5 1/2 acres are needed for the new Shir-Chadash temple.

The congregation would have preferred a retirement village on the remainder of the site because such a facility is needed in the West San Fernando Valley. “But the neighborhood has spoken,” Jacobs said as he and other congregation leaders stood Thursday in front of a field of corn now growing on the land.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus, who represents the area, said she pressured the congregation into dropping the retirement project after nearby homeowners complained it would disrupt an adjacent neighborhood of single-family homes.

Residents said they objected to traffic that the proposed $17-million, privately operated retirement facility would bring. They also complained that the commercial venture, which planned on building 261 to 303 retirement units, was inappropriate for college land.

‘Twisted Their Arm’

“I indicated to Shir-Chadash that what they were proposing wasn’t going to go, that I couldn’t support it,” Picus said. “I twisted their arm. I consider this a major victory for the neighbors.”

Ironically, Julie Gertler, a former aide to Picus, was among the planners of the retirement village concept. Gertler, a temple member, is now a private consultant.

Neighbors praised the switch to luxury homes. But several said they still feel betrayed by the college district’s decision to allow the cornfield to be built on.

“This is an improvement, but it’s still a disappointment to see this land developed,” said Janet Watson, a 40-year resident of Woodland Hills.

Homeowner Virginia Huntman, who for 17 years has lived next door to the farmland, said college officials should have considered turning the site into a public park.

“We used to have cows at the fence behind us,” Huntman said. “To see construction here is very sad. This was a jewel in the middle of the Valley.”