Picus’ Warner Ridge Housing Plan Rejected by 2 Officials

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus received a setback Wednesday as city planners recommended against her plan to turn the controversial Warner Ridge office project into a neighborhood of new single-family homes.

Two hearing examiners for the Planning Commission urged instead that the proposed $150-million commercial development be constructed on the 22-acre site on the northeast corner of De Soto Avenue and Oxnard Street.

The planners said the amount of floor space for the nine-building project should be reduced by about one-third, however. And they urged that two of the development’s proposed high-rises be scaled down in height.

Their recommendations were included in a 54-page report prepared as a follow-up to a Feb. 6 public hearing in Woodland Hills that drew a crowd of about 600 people. City planning commissioners will consider the report at an April 27 hearing at the Van Nuys Woman’s Club.

Developer Jack Spound said the recommendation buoys his hope that he can overcome Picus’ demand for luxury homes on the ridge--which serves as a buffer between the Warner Center industrial area and a nearby neighborhood.

He said he will oppose the examiners’ suggestion that the overall size of the project be cut from 810,000 square feet to 541,700, and that a seven-story building and a six-story structure be reduced by one floor each.

“We’re pleased with many of the conclusions. They reinforce many of the things we’ve been saying to the community all along,” Spound said. “It’s a very strong statement supporting the viability of commercial development on that site. There’s nothing in the report to justify a reduction in density, however.”

Picus, who announced her opposition to the office project after determining that most nearby residents were against it, said she was disappointed by Wednesday’s report. She has frequently pointed to her opposition to the project in her campaign for reelection.

Picus ‘Not Happy’

“I’m not happy. The homeowners aren’t going to be happy,” Picus said. “I feel that commercial development on Warner Ridge would be detrimental. I still support homes there. I think they’d sell instantly.”

Robert Gross, who has helped lead opposition by the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization to the office project, said that Wednesday’s recommendation was issued only to support the Planning Department’s longstanding endorsement of commercial development at the site.

Gross said the recommended density reduction is the city planners’ way of helping Spound overcome Picus’ opposition when the project reaches the City Council for a final vote later this year.

But neighbor Jeri Ardalan--past president of the Warner Hill Homeowners Assn., which supports the office project on the ridge above it--said the report is an endorsement of their contention that commercial development is best--not homes that would be “looking down on us all the time.”