Bernson Panel OKs Smaller Porter Ranch Development

The Los Angeles Board of Referred Powers gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a slightly scaled-back version of a $2-billion development plan for the Porter Ranch area of Chatsworth--one of the largest and most complex proposals in the city’s history.

The unanimous decision by four board members sent to the City Council’s Planning and Environment Committee a proposal to build about 3,000 residences and nearly 6 million square feet of commercial space in the undeveloped hills of Porter Ranch.

“It’s well thought out,” said Councilman Hal Bernson, board president. “Controversial, yes, but I think in the final analysis, I had to wrestle between creating some animosity toward myself and doing what is appropriate for the community.”

Bernson referred to criticism from residents who have opposed the plan because of its size and the traffic problems they say it will cause.

“The public is overwhelmingly opposed to this project,” Paul Chipello, leader of a neighborhood group fighting the development plan, told the board Wednesday.

Commercial Reduction

“We have no objection to housing, we have no objection to a small amount of commercial development,” said John Halpin, president of the Chatsworth Chamber of Commerce, which favors a reduction in the plan’s commercial development. “We do have objections to blotting out the sun.”

As approved Wednesday, the proposal by Beverly Hills builder Nathan Shapell’s Porter Ranch Development Co. calls for a regional shopping mall about the size of Northridge Fashion Center and office buildings up to 10 stories high. It is in line with suggestions made earlier this year by Bernson, who represents the area.

The previous version of the plan, endorsed by a Bernson-appointed citizens committee and the developer, called for about 7.5 million square feet of commercial space and buildings up to 15 stories high.

Victory for Developer

Wednesday’s vote was an early but important victory for the developer. Votes by the Planning and Environment Committee, which Bernson heads, and the full City Council remain. City Council members tend to defer to a council member’s wishes on development issues in his or her district.

But Chipello’s group, PRIDE, wants the commercial part of the project to be held to 650,000 square feet.

After the decision, Chipello said: “My only hope is that these council members are going to give more study to this plan” before the full council makes the final decision.

Robert Birch, a PRIDE spokesman, told reporters that Bernson should be “run out of town on a rail as greased as the one used to shove this project down the throats of the citizens.”

The Board of Referred Powers heard the Porter Ranch case instead of the city Planning Commission, which was disqualified from the case earlier this month by the city attorney’s office. The city attorney ruled that one planning commissioner, Theodore Stein Jr., had a conflict of interest because he owns property near the Porter Ranch site.

PRIDE then tried unsuccessfully to have Bernson disqualified from sitting on the Board of Referred Powers and the Planning and Environment Committee.

Since 1982, Bernson has received $50,380 from the Porter Ranch developers, their consultants and related companies and individuals, according to an analysis of campaign records by The Times.

Bernson spent about 10 minutes of the board meeting answering his critics and defending the Porter Ranch plan as a way to help provide financing--from the developer--for various street extensions and other needed public works improvements that the city otherwise could not afford.

He hinted that he weighed community opposition in the already developed area of Porter Ranch in Northridge against the needs of the rest of his district.

Shapell, who wants to build the project over a 20- to 30-year period, attended Wednesday’s meeting but declined to comment afterward. A spokesman, Paul Clarke, said the firm was pleased with the outcome but had wanted to build more than what Bernson is advocating.

“We are now en route to approval by the City Council,” Clarke said.

At times during the meeting, Councilmen Richard Alatorre, Marvin Braude and Zev Yaroslavsky, members of the referred powers board, seemed not completely satisfied with the answers they received to questions they asked of city planners, who favor the project.

Alatorre asked whether the developer’s contention that the plan would bring jobs closer to housing was valid in that the housing might be too expensive for workers in the commercial complex.

Braude persuaded Bernson to include a provision that would require the developer to give workers in the complex a right of first refusal for rental apartments in the development. The plan calls for 1,200 multifamily dwellings that could be apartments or condominiums.

The plan also would give the city veto power over different phases of the commercial area as the project is built. But Yaroslavsky told city planners to study how that power could coexist with a proposed development agreement that would guarantee the developer a right to build.