Ruling Expected Today in Suit Against Porter Ranch : Growth: Opponents of the massive development ask a judge to overturn approval by L.A. City Council, claiming the project violates open space provisions.

An attorney for foes of the Porter Ranch project argued in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday that the massive mixed-use development would violate city plans for maintaining the area’s open space.

The project would “kill any chance of open space” and result in flattening a series of hills north of the Simi Valley Freeway in the northwest San Fernando Valley, said Joseph J. Brecher, attorney for PRIDE, a neighborhood group that has filed a lawsuit to block developer Nathan Shapell’s project.

Judge Dzintra I. Janavs heard oral arguments in the lawsuit for about an hour Thursday.

PRIDE has asked the judge to void the Los Angeles City Council’s unanimous approval of the project last July.

A ruling was expected today.

The city’s General Plan “by implication” requires that two-thirds of Porter Ranch remain in natural open space, Brecher said.

“It may look like a park, but it won’t be natural,” he said of the development.

A specific plan for developing the 1,300-acre site with 6 million square feet of commercial development and 3,395 residential units was approved by the council on a 14-0 vote.

Responding to Brecher’s arguments, attorney Ronald Silverman said PRIDE had “misread and misinterpreted” the open-space requirements of the city’s General Plan.

Silverman said “desirable open space” as defined by the Chatsworth Community Plan, which is a component of the city’s General Plan, includes virtually any area not built upon.

The proposed cluster-housing design of the residential units provides open space to satisfy the requirements, he said.

The open space includes a 107-acre park, bicycle paths, hiking trails, tennis courts and swimming pools, Silverman said.

Moreover, Silverman argued that the open-space dictates of the Chatsworth Community Plan do not apply to the portion of Porter Ranch that PRIDE finds most objectionable--the project’s commercial core.

But this area, located nearest to the Simi Valley Freeway, is not designated for protection as open space by the community plan, Silverman said.

PRIDE also argued that developing a major office and retail complex in Porter Ranch to serve a wide geographical area was not consistent with the community plan.

That plan envisioned such a center in Chatsworth, not two miles away in Porter Ranch, Brecher said.

Silverman responded that changing the location of the office and retail center was not precluded by the plan.

He also reminded the judge that the City Council voted unanimously to approve the project.

“I don’t think all those people were acting unreasonably,” he said.

In general, courts have been reluctant to second-guess the land-use decisions of elected officials.