Neighborhood Group Files Suit to Void Porter Ranch Approval

A north San Fernando Valley neighborhood group filed suit Wednesday to void the Los Angeles City Council’s approval of the 1,300-acre Porter Ranch project, saying the $2-billion development will gridlock streets, crowd schools and overload sewage and garbage systems.

As unanimously approved by the council July 10, Porter Ranch would be one of the largest developments in the city’s history, providing housing for 11,000 people and jobs for 20,000 when built on the slopes of the Santa Susana Mountains north of the Simi Valley Freeway in Chatsworth.

In a suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against the city and the developer, leaders of PRIDE, a neighborhood group opposed to the project, sought a 75% reduction in the 6 million square feet of commercial space approved for the project by the council.

As part of that reduction, they vowed to seek removal from the project of 1.5 million square feet approved for a regional shopping center.

“The commercial part of this project is way out of scale with what surrounds it,” said PRIDE spokesman Bob Bilovsky, “and represents a triumph of developer dollars over the public will.”

Diana Daxon Davis, another PRIDE leader, said the group had no quarrel with the project’s 3,395 houses and condominiums, “which we can use.” She said it plans to focus its legal efforts on “reducing commercial space in an area that even now is job-rich. There already is a mile-long backup to get on the freeway in the evening from people who work in Chatsworth.”

Paul Clarke, a spokesman for Porter Ranch Development Co., dismissed PRIDE as a “small fringe group” and called the suit a “frivolous legal action” that would quickly be dismissed.

Noting the group’s focus on the project’s shopping center, Clarke said: “That has to raise questions about who is financially behind this group.” Clarke and other development officials have repeatedly suggested--without evidence, they admit--that project opponents might represent other Valley malls seeking to head off competition.

PRIDE leaders heatedly reject such accusations, saying that they are fighting the proposed mall because it would be a major generator of traffic that would clog streets and freeways.

Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the area, contends that the $50 million in traffic improvements the developers would be required to pay for will make neighborhood streets “better than they are now.”

PRIDE leaders also said they were heartened by the outcome of negotiations Tuesday between Bernson and the Simi Valley City Council, even though the talks resulted in a decision by the council not to file suit to block the development.

Simi Valley council members said they decided not to go to court after Bernson agreed to amend the project plan to prohibit construction of more than 1.5 million square feet of commercial and retail space until the state has begun work on widening the Simi Valley Freeway to eight lanes.

The fact that Bernson and the developer “capitulated so quickly just proves that the environmental documents prepared to justify this project are shaky,” said PRIDE board member Don Worsham.

The agreement reached with the Simi council “contained no concessions whatsoever,” Clarke said. “We merely agreed to clarify a provision that already was in the plan in order to ease their worries.”