County to Buy Planned Lumberyard Site : Chatsworth: The 13-acre parcel of Southern Pacific land may become a transportation center, revitalizing the community’s downtown.

A 13-acre site in the heart of the Chatsworth commercial district will not be developed into a controversial lumber transfer station because it has been included in a $450-million package of property to be sold to the county’s transportation agency by Southern Pacific, officials said last week.

The Devonshire Street site is likely to become a transportation center where commuters can transfer among buses, shuttles and trains, said Nikolas Patsaouras, president of the Rapid Transit District board of directors.

The site also could serve as the northern terminus of a proposed 16.5-mile bikeway that would start in North Hollywood, Patsaouras said.

At a news conference at the site, Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson hailed the purchase as a “very good thing for Chatsworth” and suggested that the Southern Pacific property could be the linchpin to stimulate redevelopment of the community’s downtown area.

Bernson, who represents the area, joined local civic and business leaders in calling for construction of a railroad station “that reflects the cultural and architectural heritage of Chatsworth.”

Members of Citizens for Chatsworth distributed photographs of the Old West-style Chatsworth train depot that was torn down in 1962 and suggested that a new station could be built to look like it.

Community leaders were angered two months ago when they learned that Southern Pacific planned to develop the long-vacant site, which is next to the railroad’s Coast Main Line, as a storage yard for lumber brought in by rail and bound for local builders and lumberyards.

Activists said up to 70 lumber-hauling trucks a day would destroy the small-town ambience of Chatsworth and pose a safety hazard to a nearby elementary school.

Andy Anderson, a Southern Pacific spokesman in San Francisco, said the railroad “has no alternative plans for a lumber transfer station elsewhere at this time, but we are studying the demand.”

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and Southern Pacific recently announced agreement on the sale of 177 miles of railroad right of way that transit officials say will be used to dramatically expand the region’s rail transportation system.

In the San Fernando Valley, the purchase includes the east-west Burbank Branch freight line, which crosses the Valley from Burbank to Canoga Park parallel to Chandler and Victory boulevards and Oxnard and Topham streets before turning north parallel to Canoga Avenue.

By 2001, the commission plans to extend the downtown-to-North Hollywood Metro Rail subway west along the Burbank Branch line from North Hollywood to the San Diego Freeway.

As part of the purchase agreement, the commission will obtain rent-free use of 69 miles of Southern Pacific’s two main lines to the north, which diverge in Burbank. The agreement gives the commission track rights on these two lines from downtown Los Angeles to Moorpark and Saugus.

The commission plans to launch commuter rail service on those lines within two years, carrying commuters downtown on intercity rail cars pulled by conventional diesel-electric locomotives.

The agreement also includes purchase of a 40-foot strip alongside Southern Pacific’s Coast and San Joaquin lines for possible future light-rail lines similar to the Blue Line operating between Los Angeles and Long Beach.