Picus Links Warner Plan, South Africa : Development: The builder of the Warner Ridge office project says it will generate $4.5 million for low-income housing.

The controversy over the Warner Ridge project took new twists Friday as Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus accused one of the project’s partners of doing business with South Africa, and the developer told a Pierce College group his project will generate $4.5 million for low-income housing.

The heavily lobbied proposal to build half a dozen office towers--ranging from three to seven stories, with 810,000 square feet of space--at De Soto Avenue and Oxnard Street comes before the full council next Wednesday.

It’s unclear what the outcome of the vote will be, City Hall watchers say.

Picus, who is seeking to quash the project and force the rezoning of the property to permit only residential development, distributed a letter Friday to her council colleagues revealing that Johnson Wax Development, a 50% partner with the Spound Co. in the project, has a subsidiary in South Africa.

Picus said Johnson Wax’s subsidiary is relevant to the Warner Ridge debate because of the council’s longstanding opposition to South Africa’s apartheid regime. The city has passed laws barring firms from receiving municipal contracts if they do business in South Africa and required the city’s public employee pension funds to divest stocks or bonds in companies tied to South Africa.

Connection to firms doing business with South Africa has not been used in the past as grounds to deny building permits or zoning changes, however, a city Planning Department official said.

The councilwoman told a reporter her letter was primarily aimed at the council’s three black members and particularly at Councilman Robert Farrell, a South-Central Los Angeles lawmaker who is the sole member of the council’s planning committee to support the proposed Warner Ridge development. The committee voted 2 to 1 to support Picus last month.

Farrell is also a council leader on the issue of South African divestment. To counter Picus’ move, the Warner Ridge team quickly dispatched black attorney Yvonne Brathwaite Burke to City Hall to meet with Farrell to explain the Johnson Wax situation.

Steve Afriat, a lobbyist who represents developer Jack Spound, said Johnson Wax is “one of the most philanthropic and civil rights-minded corporations” and has the “highest record of working with anti-apartheid activists.” Afriat said the billion-dollar corporation had even been asked by anti-apartheid activists in South Africa to remain in their country because it is a large and enlightened employer of blacks.

Meanwhile, Spound caught his opponents by surprise Friday when he told a Pierce College panel that his project would--if allowed to proceed--contribute $4.5 million toward the construction of low-income housing in the city of Los Angeles.

“That came out of the blue,” said Shirley Blessing, treasurer of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization. WHHO is Picus’ major ally in the fight to kill the proposed Warner Ridge project.

Afriat said the $4.5 million figure was based on an estimate of how much the Warner Ridge project would be required to pay into a city housing fund if the City Council passes a proposed law to require commercial development projects to pay fees into a fund to build low- and medium-priced housing.

Spound brought up the $4.5-million housing fee Friday during a meeting of the Pierce College Planning Advisory Committee, held to give WHHO another opportunity to urge the college to change its position on the Warner Ridge project. The college opposes residential development on the property, next to college land, but is neutral on commercial development on the site.

After hearing from both sides, the college panel stuck to its previous position. “It was disappointing,” Blessing said.