New Study of Warner Ridge Vetoed by Bradley : Development: Councilwoman Joy Picus wanted to use the environmental review to prevent commercial construction at the Woodland Hills site.

Mayor Tom Bradley on Wednesday vetoed a $250,000 environmental review of Warner Ridge in Woodland Hills, a serious setback for Councilwoman Joy Picus’ campaign to block commercial development there.

The environmental review was a key ingredient in Picus’ drive to reserve the ridge for single-family houses, a campaign she is trying to salvage from an adverse court ruling.

“I’m very angry and disappointed with the mayor’s decision,” said Picus, who vowed to ask her council colleagues Friday to override the mayor’s veto.

Picus, locked in a bitter struggle with the Warner Ridge developer for several years, predicted Friday’s vote will be a “real shooting match” but said she felt comfortable she could secure the two-thirds vote needed to overturn the mayor’s decision.

Bradley vetoed a plan, approved by the City Council on Aug. 7 by a 9-1 vote, to hire an outside consultant to prepare a supplemental environmental impact report needed to amend the community plan to reserve Warner Ridge for single-family houses.

Picus wants the community plan amended in order to comply with a court order issued earlier this summer by Superior Court Judge John Zebrowski, who ruled that the single-family zoning for Warner Ridge is illegally inconsistent with the plan, which allows commercial development.

Zebrowski ruled on a complaint by the developer against the city, alleging that the city had illegally tried to deprive it of its property values by zoning the site for single-family houses in response to political pressure from neighboring homeowners.

One way to achieve the consistency required by Zebrowski would be to amend the plan instead of the zoning.

Zebrowski gave the city a Dec. 21 deadline to bring the zoning and plan into agreement. A plan amendment is normally a slow and cumbersome process, requiring numerous public hearings and environmental reviews. It is not unusual for such amendments to take a year or more.

By hiring the outside consultant, Picus hoped to speed the process and beat the judge’s deadline. If the city cannot amend the plan to conform to the zoning, it must change the zoning to meet the existing plan, giving a go-ahead to the developer.

“I don’t know what my options are if I can’t get an override,” Picus said. The San Fernando Valley lawmaker charged that the mayor, by his veto, had sided “with a giant corporate developer” instead of with the “people of Woodland Hills.”

Albert Spound, a partner in the Warner Ridge project, praised Bradley’s veto. The Spound Co. and Johnson Wax Development Co. are 50-50 owners of the 21.5-acre site.

Bradley’s decision was unveiled one day after the Warner Ridge development partnership proposed what it called a compromise solution.

The developer previously sought to build an 810,000-square-foot commercial project, which was blocked by the council in January at Picus’ request. The developer proposed Tuesday a 540,000-square-foot commercial project, with 350 residential units, 20% of them reserved for low- and very low-income families.

Picus has not flatly rejected the latest Spound-Johnson Wax proposal.

In a two-page letter, Bradley said he vetoed the EIR spending plan because it would be unnecessary if the city adopted the developer’s latest mixed-use proposal for the site.

“With the extreme budget difficulties we face, I cannot justify the expenditure of $250,000 of the taxpayers’ money without first asking the council to consider the developer’s settlement proposal,” Bradley said in his veto letter to the council.

Bradley also predicted that the consultants would be unable to meet the judge’s Dec. 21 deadline anyway and, if they could, it would have to be at the expense of “meaningful public participation.”

Even if Picus can win an override of the mayor’s veto, Bradley has stalled Picus’ efforts to make the Dec. 21 deadline by 15 days.

The mayor could have signed the appropriation Aug. 9, the same day the city clerk’s office referred the matter to him for his signature or veto.

Additionally, Picus’ office has privately suggested that the mayor’s office bent city rules to add to the delay.

Bradley has 10 days to consider an expenditure item approved by the council. If after 10 days, he does nothing, the item is deemed approved. His alternative is to sign it or veto it within 10 days.

But the mayor’s office contends its 10-day period did not start until four days after the city clerk’s office said it sent the appropriation to him. Picus had asked the city attorney’s office to investigate the discrepancy in times. Late Wednesday, Picus said she was told by the city attorney’s office that the “file legitimately disappeared for a few days.”

None of eight similar files, also approved by the council Aug. 7, were held up for as long in the mayor’s office as the Warner Ridge matter, according to city records.