Fryman Canyon Grading Permit Extended

After more than three hours of heated debate, a city commission Tuesday sided with a developer who wants to build homes in a Studio City canyon that opponents had hoped to save by persuading the city to designate it a cultural landmark.

The Board of Building and Safety Commissioners, rejecting arguments from Mayor Tom Bradley’s representative that an environmental review be required, voted 3-2 to extend a grading permit issued in 1988 to developer Fred Sahadi.

Sahadi plans to build 26 luxury homes in Fryman Canyon, a wooded area west of Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

Ground breaking on the project was halted April 21 by a city stop-work order issued when foes of the project asked the city Cultural Affairs Commission to designate the canyon a culturally significant site.

Last week, the Cultural Heritage Commission voted to give landmark status to half of the 63-acre canyon, but it was the half that Sahadi had been planning to donate to parks officials anyway.

Sahadi’s grading permits for construction on the other half expired May 1 while the cultural commission was considering the matter.

Bradley, Councilman Michael Woo, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) and state Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles) petitioned the building and safety commissioners, asking for a review of the project’s impact on the environment before the grading was allowed to begin.

They pointed out that the environmental impact report for the project was prepared in 1978, and that the state Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are investigating project plans that call for filling in a stream.

Bradley’s planning adviser, Jane Blumenfeld, said the city should conduct its own environmental review.

The 1978 environmental impact report did not consider problems now facing the city--the drought, the landfill space crunch, the overloaded sewer system and traffic congestion--that would be exacerbated by new housing, Blumenfeld said.

But Sahadi and his attorney argued that it would be unfair for the city not to extend the permits since it was a city commission that prevented work from beginning last month before the permits expired.

In recent months, slow-growth activists repeatedly have appealed to the Cultural Heritage Commission to stop planned developments by designating the sites as city landmarks, a move that can prevent changes to the property for up to a year.

Sahadi’s attorney, Benjamin Reznik, said the developer is working with the Department of Fish and Game and will not begin construction until the state agency approves the plans. The city is not responsible for enforcing state law, Reznik said, and the grading permits should not be affected by negotiations with the state.