ELECTIONS HIDDEN HILLS COUNCIL : Defeat Puts Lower-Cost Housing in Doubt

The resounding election defeat of three Hidden Hills City Council members who favored a controversial lower-cost housing proposal put the project’s future in question Wednesday, just a week before a key hearing by a judge who insists the project be built.

Final vote totals showed Mayor Chris K. Van Peski and council members Colleen M. Hartman and Warren H. McCament were ousted by a margin of more than 3-to-1 in what was believed to be a record 59% voter turnout.

The winners--Howard Klein, Susan Norris Porcaro and David G. Stanley--could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But throughout the campaign, they opposed construction of the project.

Klein spoke against the city’s annexation in February of 25 acres where Tarzana builder Danny Howard proposes constructing nine single-family houses, a five-story office building and the 48-unit lower-cost apartment building for senior citizens. Stanley and Porcaro spoke against any multifamily housing or additional commercial buildings in the city.

The three winners also expressed displeasure with a redevelopment agency the city formed in 1984 to finance a storm drain.

Porcaro said in an interview late Tuesday that she would work to abolish the agency, which is at the root of the lower-cost housing dispute in the well-to-do gated city of spacious estates at the southwestern end of the San Fernando Valley. The city settled a lawsuit last year by agreeing to build Howard’s project, including the lower-cost housing. State law requires that 20% of redevelopment agency money be spent on lower-cost housing.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge R. William Schoettler Jr., who presided over the suit, is scheduled to hold a hearing next Thursday on a request by the developer for a court order requiring the city to approve the entire project as specified in the settlement.

Last month, Schoettler told the city’s attorney he was fully prepared to order city officials to carry out the settlement.

“If somebody is interested in dragging his feet,” Schoettler said, “I’ll have him drag his feet in here . . . because I want to see that that is accomplished the way it was agreed to be accomplished.”

Referring to the upcoming election, in which the housing project was the main issue, the judge added: “I’m not overly concerned one way or the other as to what position might be taken by potential new members of the City Council, so long as the judgment is carried out.” He said the only way he could see the settlement being changed would be on appeal.

But Benjamin M. Reznik, an attorney for the developer, reiterated an offer made earlier this year: If the city would approve construction of the nine houses and the office building, Howard would agree to suspend the lower-cost housing project.

City Atty. Wayne K. Lemieux was hesitant to predict what the new council will do after it takes office April 17. Because an environmental review is not yet complete, the lame-duck council cannot take final action on the project before then.

“Candidates say things that incumbents don’t do, and they’re about to become incumbents,” Lemieux said. At a recent meeting Lemieux suggested to Klein that the new council could expose the city to civil liability if it disregards his legal advice.

During a candidates’ forum before the election, McCament compared Hidden Hills’ situation to that of Yonkers, N.Y., where City Council members were fined $500 per day by a federal judge for defying his order to implement a housing desegregation plan. The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned those fines, but upheld an $820,000 penalty against the city.

Others at the April 3 forum, including Stanley, retorted that the Hidden Hills dispute was not similar to the Yonkers case. In Yonkers, the city was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for segregating subsidized housing units in mostly black areas. In the Hidden Hills case, the issues center on the requirements of redevelopment law and the extent to which the city has already agreed to build the disputed housing to settle the lawsuit by Los Angeles County and a private attorney.

“If they want to do away with the redevelopment agency and the affordable housing, they’re going to have to deal with a judge or two,” Lemieux said of the new council. “Whether they can do it successfully or not is not something I should be commenting on.”

Reznik, the developer’s lawyer, called the winning candidates’ stated opposition to the redevelopment agency “a cover for saying, ‘We don’t want affordable housing.’ ”

The vote totals were: 495 for Stanley, 486 for Porcaro, 455 for Klein, 154 for Hartman, 151 for McCament, 135 for Van Peski and 37 for Harvey A. Cohen, who had withdrawn from the race.

Times staff writer Aaron Curtiss contributed to this story.