Proposed Mini-City Sets Off New Development War

Ever since the late 19th Century when pioneers wrested semiarid fields and mountains from Spanish and Mexican owners, the story of Southern California development has largely been one of land, politics, money and power.

In a new chapter, those potent forces--dramatized in the film “Chinatown”--are again at play. And it is happening in the area that was a backdrop to the movie--Los Angeles’ prototype bedroom suburb, the San Fernando Valley. This time the need for housing and a businessman’s desire for commercial development are clashing with new concerns over crowded schools and highways, air pollution, water supply and trash disposal.

The proposed Porter Ranch development, on 1,300 acres of what was once a 56,000-acre ranch extending from San Fernando Mission to Chatsworth and to the top of the Santa Susana Mountains, is the latest battleground.

There--where a Gold Rush-era immigrant named George K. Porter grew rich raising grain, cattle and sheep--a 20th-Century land developer has proposed a mini-city just north of the Simi Valley Freeway.

Flattening hilltops, moving enough earth to fill the Rose Bowl 50 times, Nathan Shapell’s Porter Ranch Development Co. would build more than 2,000 single-family homes, 800 apartments and condos.

A shopping center and several office buildings, some 10 stories tall, would rise near the freeway in what the company said will be a “town center,” with restaurants, a town square and public transportation. Homes would be built in the hills. Some lots would be big enough for horses. There would be horse and hiking trails, and a 50-acre city park.

But that does not please residents of nearby subdivisions, who moved to the northwest valley to escape city congestion.

Homeowners Protest

“We just feel this is much, much too big,” John Bronner, a resident of a nearby subdivision, said at a community meeting earlier this year. “If I wanted to live in the city, I would move to downtown L.A.”

That feeling, shared by other residents, has touched off a wave of homeowner protests, helped prompt a long-shot recall effort against the local city councilman, Hal Bernson, and is posing a difficult political problem for Mayor Tom Bradley and the Los Angeles City Council, which is expected to begin committee hearings on the proposal late in September.

But Shapell, 69, one of the state’s most politically influential businessmen, is pushing for quick council approval of his development. Political alliances built by Shapell, a major campaign contributor to Bradley and council members--plus the promise of needed jobs and housing in Southern California--appear to spell quick approval.

Evidence of Shapell’s support came in an interview with Frank Fielding, a top city planning official. “I think it is the best thing going for the north valley,” he said.

Fielding said that the project would bring housing and jobs together in one development, helping to ease traffic congestion in the area. He also noted that city plans over the years also have called for a commercial development in the area.

Yet planning experts, including some in the Southern California Assn. of Governments, the area’s leading planning body, are concerned that hasty approval may be given to a development whose importance extends far beyond the valley. It is the biggest development to come before the council and the mayor since the 1985 voter approval of Proposition U, a slow-growth measure reflecting public sentiment for slower growth in Los Angeles. (The Porter Ranch proposal would not be affected by Proposition U because it is a new project, with its own special zoning laws.)

The project is also of interest far beyond the San Fernando Valley because of the history of the Porter Ranch, and its place in the story of Los Angeles land development.

Porter bought the land, part of the Spanish land-grant Rancho San Fernando, from a Spanish family. He was a tough pioneer, and well-connected to the powerful of old Los Angeles. That was evident in the 1890s, when land-hungry people, disputing the title of the Rancho San Fernando lands, squatted on Porter’s property and his cowboys drove them off.

In 1904, as told in the book “Thinking Big” by Robert Gottlieb and Irene Wolf, 16,000 acres of Porter’s holdings south of the current proposed development were sold to a small group of Los Angeles business leaders, including Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of The Times; E. H. Harriman, president of the Union Pacific Railroad; Edwin T. Earl, owner of the Los Angeles Evening Express, and Moses Sherman, who served on the board governing the public water system.

By then, William Mulholland, the famous engineer who built the city’s water system, was well on his way to completing the secret plan to buy up Owens Valley water rights to supply water to the San Fernando Valley and the rest of the city.

Value Increases

When the project was revealed and approved by the voters, and the aqueduct from the Owens Valley completed, the valley land became much more valuable.

The Los Angeles Examiner attacked the land deal, saying “these persons are moved by self-interest in the matter.” Defenders of the syndicate denied collusion and insider knowledge. But the matter became a transcendent event in Los Angeles history, with the story being retold over the years, including in fictionalized form in the movie “Chinatown.”

The current development proposal involves the last and largest remaining parcel of the old Porter Ranch. The controversy today bears no resemblance to the land deal almost a century ago, except for the fact that both happened at the Porter Ranch and both have region-wide implications.

While many of the past land development decisions occurred behind closed doors, the latest Porter Ranch proposal is being aired before public bodies.

And Nathan Shapell’s background is far different from that of the men who developed the other part of Porter Ranch.

Nathan Shapell is of the post-war generation of Los Angeles developers. They built the homes for the ex-GIs after World World II, creating a suburban Los Angeles of modest homes and big back yards that became a pattern for the rest of the country.

Since the 1950s, Shapell built up to 40 developments in California, ranging from low-cost housing in South Los Angeles to luxury apartments in downtown to a project on the former MGM Ranch in Thousand Oaks, which envisions more than 1,400 homes and a 102-acre industrial park.

Shapell has political influence through friendships with political leaders and campaign contributions. For example, $245,437 was contributed to Bradley and council members since 1982 by his Shapell Industries; a partner in the Porter Ranch project, Liberty Building; and affiliated companies, company officials, employees and family members, according to a study of contributions by The Times.

That was a substantial part of the $410,000 given to Bradley and council members since 1982 by various companies and lobbyists associated with the project.

Bernson, who received $50,380 of such contributions, said the contributions probably reflect the contributors’ view “that we’re doing a good job.” And he said he still could be objective.

Richard Mahan, an official of Porter Ranch Development Co., said that building this planned community has been Shapell’s great dream, the culmination of the 69-year-old builder’s years in the business.

But critics have said that the implications of the project go far beyond the builder’s dreams.

Among the regional implications, according to project officials and the city environmental impact report, are that:

* Traffic will be increased, although city officials said that $50 million in planned street improvements will take care of vehicles drawn by the development.

* A school district hard-pressed to finance schools for other areas of Los Angeles will have to build new classrooms for the development. At a meeting of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s building committee in July, board members questioned whether there would be enough money to build new schools, even though Porter Ranch Development Co. would provide land for a school site.

* Air quality would be affected in the short term by construction and in the long run by “mobile vehicle emissions produced by traffic generated by the plan area,” according to the environmental impact report. But city officials said pollution caused by the traffic would not be “significant.”

* Solid waste generated by the new homes, office buildings and stores, when the project is completed in 20 years, would amount to 35 tons a day, increasing the regional garbage load by just under 1%, the environmental impact report said. Critics say that is too much, but city officials say that the problem would be alleviated by requiring trash compactors in homes and commercial buildings, plus a recycling program. The city at present has no such mandatory compacting or recycling laws.

* A total of 1.38 million gallons of sewage per day would be produced by the project when completed, which is considered “cumulatively adverse” to the hard-pressed city sewage disposal system, the environmental impact report said. But officials said city ordinances prevent construction of new units unless there is sewer capacity; they noted that expansion of the sewer system is under way.

* Residents and businesses will consume 3.02 million gallons of water a day from a water system facing a reduced supply from its traditional Owens Valley area source. To prevent a strain on the city supply, city officials said residents would need a full array of water conservation devices, including automatic sprinkler systems, low-volume toilets and water-saving shower heads.

There are several other controversial aspects of the project.

Critics have said there has not been enough opportunity for local residents to object.

Councilman Bernson appointed a 14-member citizens committee to review the project in 1987, saying it was a cross-section of the community. But critics of the project said the committee was business-oriented and lacking representatives of the slow-growth movement.

Paul Chipello, who heads a citizens group opposed to the project, called PRIDE, said that the committee was not representative of the area. He also objected to the fact that the citizens committee based its decisions on information provided by the city Planning Department.

He objected to that because Porter Ranch Development Co. had given the city $180,000 to pay for the drawing up of a proposed plan for the subdivision.

“A developers’ plan” is what Chipello called it.

The developers paid for the work by city planners because of shortages in Planning Department funding.

Attorney Dan Garcia, a former Planning Commission president who now represents Porter Ranch Development Co., defended the procedure as a way of getting the work done by a short-staffed Planning Department. Planning for a huge proposed development west of downtown, Central City West, is also being financed by developers, he said.

Further Controversy

Another point of controversy is whether Porter Ranch Development Co. is promising more than it intends to deliver.

A fact sheet distributed by the company promised “a significant percentage of the major intersections in the area will actually see improved traffic flow with the building of the new homes and the town center.”

But T. K. Prime of the city Department of Transportation said that while some intersections would be improved, the $50 million in work financed by the development company would “mitigate what they produce” rather than bringing an overall improvement in area traffic conditions.

Job-Housing Balance

Another source of controversy is over whether the construction of so many office buildings would damage a balance between jobs and housing sought by the Southern California Assn. of Governments and other planners.

The idea behind such a balance is to have homes near work, eliminating long commutes.

Some SCAG planners said the construction of the offices would upset the balance in the north valley.

But proponents of the project strongly disagree. They say workers in the new offices and stores would be able to live in the community.

“A secretary making $25,000 a year would be able to afford an apartment in the development,” said Paul Clarke, a consultant for the project.

And he said the offices and stores would provide jobs for those living in subdivisions in other parts of the valley and in Ventura County, shortening their commutes.

Times researcher Cecilia Rasmussen contributed to this story