86-Item List Backfires : Porter Ranch Affects the World, Foe Says

The plight of elephants hunted for ivory and dolphins caught in the nets of tuna fishermen might seem far afield from a $2-billion development proposed for Porter Ranch, but a spokesman for a group opposing the project doesn’t think so.

Robert Birch of Northridge, spokesman for the opposition group calling itself PRIDE, included those concerns and 84 others on a list he submitted to the Los Angeles City Planning Commission last month.

But the list is being used against Birch and PRIDE, as the developer’s representatives and City Councilman Hal Bernson pass it around to show that the project’s opposition is outside the mainstream of political thought in the west San Fernando Valley. Or just to get a good laugh.

“The tuna fish got me,” said Paul Clarke, a political consultant to Porter Ranch Development Co. “The desertification of Africa was certainly something that caused chuckles in a couple of quarters, and how we affect the Amazon jungle I’m hard-pressed to see.”

Birch’s list contained questions he believed were omitted by an environmental impact report on the project. Besides questions about the number of dolphins and elephants that would be killed to provide tuna and ivory for the development’s population and how it would affect Africa and the Amazon, Birch asked how the proposed 3,000 residences and 7.5 million square feet of commercial space in Porter Ranch would affect the incidence of prostitution, AIDS transmission, incest, suicide, obesity, rats, and cancer linked to tobacco smoke and to second-hand tobacco smoke.

The list, which was rhetorical in spots, asked how much mail the project would generate, whether “the children of the future” have been asked if they want it, and whether its profits would be invested in the Soviet Union, South Africa or Albania.

It also asked more moderate questions, such as how the project would affect area airports, hospitals and gasoline consumption.

No Response to List

At a Planning Commission meeting Thursday in Van Nuys, Birch asked for a response to the questions. But President William G. Luddy said the commission does not respond to each written document it receives.

Seeming uncertain about which document Birch was talking about, Luddy asked: “Oh, the whales and the dolphins?” He paused. “And the elephants?”

Birch replied: “I’m sorry to see the commission takes a stance of belittlement.”

PRIDE opposes the size of the proposed commercial area. Paul Chipello, PRIDE’s executive director, was ambivalent when asked whether the group shares Birch’s views.

“They’re all valid,” he said of the 86 questions. But he added, “It was simply really an individual document.”

Representatives of Porter Ranch Development seized upon the letter, sending copies to reporters and Bernson. Clarke said the letter shows Birch and PRIDE are “on the fringe.”

Last week, when Bernson took seven council members and a group of city department heads on a bus tour of his district, he passed Birch’s list out just as the bus approached the 1,300-acre Porter Ranch site.

Laughed Out Loud

A smiling Bernson, who supports the project with a commercial area of 6 million square feet, described the letter as an example of community concern. As the city officials began to read through the letter, many laughed out loud. Throughout the afternoon, barbs were jokingly exchanged about whether increased incest and dolphin deaths would result from the Porter Ranch development.

“I’m saddened that they would laugh at questions that I think are humanely based,” Birch said. “These gentlemen have suggested they are going to build a city of the future, a visionary city. . . . When I asked very pointed questions regarding paramedics or hospitals or disease or suicide, it is not because I want to delay the planning process. It is because I want these developers to seriously consider all the ramifications of a city.

”. . . I am not a flake.”