Woodland Hills Homeowners Sue Over Pierce College Land Lease

Woodland Hills residents have sued the Los Angeles Community College District in hopes of ending a controversial 2-year-old lease of surplus Pierce College land to a Jewish group.

The Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization contends that the college violated state law by renting a 17 1/2-acre cornfield to Temple Shir Chadash in 1986.

The 75-year lease has the effect of a permanent sale--and the $3-million rent is far below the market value of the Victory Boulevard site, the homeowners’ group alleged in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

“We’re trying to preserve our open space as something that will be available in the future when it is needed for educational purposes,” Robert Gross, vice president of the homeowners group, said Tuesday.

College officials said they plan to fight the suit, which was filed late Monday.

Blair Sillers, a college district spokesman, said the district’s attorneys had not reviewed the homeowners’ charges. But he said the temple lease was carefully checked by attorneys before it was signed by district trustees.

Leaders of the Encino-based temple did not return telephone calls Tuesday.

The suit is the second obstacle thrown in front of the 400-member Reform synagogue, which hopes to build a religious and educational facility on the college land, which is east of the West Valley Regional Occupational Center.

In September, the temple bowed to homeowners’ complaints and dropped plans to sublease 12 acres to a retirement home. The sublease had been viewed as a way of raising money to finance both the rental fee and the temple’s construction. Instead, Rabbi Steven Jacobs said at the time, luxury single-family houses would be built and marketed.

Antonio Cosby-Rossmann, a lawyer for the homeowners group, said the suit was filed after college district officials had ignored repeated requests to terminate the lease.

The suit contended that the college district should have offered the cornfield for recreational or educational use by other public agencies before it “structured its lease offer to make the parcel available only to . . . Shir Chadash.”

“The gift and waste of public funds, if not set aside, will involve the district in the unconstitutional establishment of a religious enterprise,” the suit said.