Local News in Brief : Builder Wines, Dines Would-Be Neighbors

Woodland Hills builder Jack Spound invited a whole neighborhood to a fancy hotel dinner to line up backing for his controversial $150-million office project at the edge of Warner Center. It is the subject of a crucial Los Angeles Planning Commission hearing next week.

Spound asked all 850 members of the Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce to stop by the hotel for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres and to talk about supporting him at the hearing. But foes of the proposed development criticized his hospitality.

Spound said the Wednesday night dinner was a way of rewarding neighboring residents of the Warner Hills condominium development who have backed his “Warner Ridge” project, which he hopes to build in partnership with Johnson Wax Development Corp. The condominium dwellers were treated to cocktails and a dinner of veal with wild mushroom sauce and filet of salmon in the grand ballroom of the Warner Center Marriott hotel. About 60 people were expected; 34 showed up.

“I don’t consider it ethical,” said Robert Gross, a vice president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, whose neighborhood was not invited to the dinner. “The wining and dining of selected local residents shows this developer will stop at nothing to achieve his goal.”