Neighbors Assail Scope of Porter Ranch Plan

About 250 people attended a public meeting Monday night where a residential and commercial development proposal in the Porter Ranch area of Chatsworth was assailed as too large.

Leaders of PRIDE, a group of Porter Ranch-area residents opposed to the proposed development, organized the meeting at Chatsworth High School. They called on Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson to limit the size of the project’s commercial area, which would include a shopping mall the size of the Northridge Fashion Center and office buildings of up to 15 stories.

The Porter Ranch Development Co., run by Beverly Hills builder Nathan Shapell, wants to build 2,195 single-family homes, 800 condominiums and 7.5 million square feet of commercial space on 1,300 vacant acres north of the Simi Valley Freeway.

“If Mr. Bernson does not listen, he is ignoring the will of the people, and in a democracy, that’s a very dangerous thing to do,” Robert Birch, 41, of Northridge, a spokesman for PRIDE, told the crowd.

The proposal is the product of months of negotiations among the developer, city planners and a citizens advisory committee appointed by Bernson.

Last week, city planners called for holding the project’s commercial area to 1.5 million square feet until the state funds an extra lane on the Simi Valley Freeway and for replacing 672,500 square feet of office space with 400 units of multifamily housing.

Hearing Set

The Planning Commission has scheduled a public hearing on the development Thursday at the Van Nuys Woman’s Club.

“By far the biggest issue is the commercial development,” said Paul Chipello, 46, of Northridge, executive director of PRIDE.

PRIDE member David Peltz, 50, of Chatsworth, used an overhead projector to show a multicolored pie graph under the headline, “Where the quality of life in Chatsworth is heading.” The pie was divided into three sections: “Out the door, up in smoke and down the tubes.”

City Councilman Nate Holden made the meeting one of his campaign stops on the eve of today’s mayoral election. After attacking Mayor Tom Bradley, Holden said he will ask Bernson, regarding Porter Ranch, to “work it out with these people.”

“That many people against the project, are you kidding?” Holden said. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”

Bernson, who represents the area, has said he will not take a formal position on the matter until Thursday’s hearing.

The name PRIDE began as an acronym for Porter Ranch Is Developed Enough, but Chipello said those words are too anti-development and have been abandoned, although the name remains.

Porter Ranch Development has maintained that the project would bring together jobs and housing and would pay for needed traffic improvements that could not be funded otherwise.