Commission Delays Consideration of Porter Ranch Plan
The Los Angeles City Planning Commission postponed consideration Thursday of a $2-billion development proposal for the Porter Ranch area of Chatsworth.
The hearing was rescheduled for May 25 to allow the city attorney’s office time to review whether commissioners Theodore Stein Jr. and Suzette Neiman have conflicts of interest. Both have investments in a small housing tract about a mile from the proposed project.
Thirteen of the tract’s 19 homes have been sold and the remainder are expected to be sold in the next three to six months, Stein said Thursday.
Porter Ranch Development Co. wants to build 2,195 single-family houses, 800 units of multifamily housing and 7.5 million square feet of commercial space in the hills north of the Simi Valley Freeway over a 20- to 30-year period.
In a separate development, a group opposed to the size of the commercial portion of the project canceled a press conference at which Los Angeles school board member Julie Korenstein was to appear.
The event was canceled because the Planning Commission postponed its consideration of the Porter Ranch proposal, said Jack McGrath, who helped organize the press conference for the opposition group PRIDE.
Porter Ranch Development demanded an apology Wednesday for what it said were deliberate misstatements that Korenstein made about the firm. Korenstein refused, saying she didn’t make the comments. A Korenstein spokesman said Thursday that the school board member’s stand against the Porter Ranch proposal has not changed.
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