Angered Residents Criticize Bernson’s Support of Growth : Porter Ranch: Forum speakers contend that the councilman has lied to the public to protect favored projects, such as the massive development.

More than 300 northwest San Fernando Valley residents, furious at what they called rampant growth, vented their anger at City Councilman Hal Bernson during a raucous hearing Tuesday night and defended an environmental report Bernson wants rewritten.

To loud applause and cheers from the crowd, speaker after speaker complained that development in the Chatsworth-Porter Ranch area is occurring without regard for the people who live there or the ability of local facilities to cope with the growth.

“Our lifestyle is being trashed for their pocketbooks,” said Victor Miller, a Chatsworth resident who asserted that Bernson has deliberately lied to city planners to protect favored development projects.

Speakers at the hearing at Lawrence Junior High School in Chatsworth, called by the Los Angeles Planning Department to discuss long-range plans for the area, defended a recently released environmental impact report on the Chatsworth-Porter Ranch District Plan.

The study considered the cumulative impact of all development that could occur in the area over the next 20 years, including the massive Porter Ranch project--3,395 residences and more than 6 million square feet of commercial development--approved by the City Council in July.

The report forecasts massive traffic jams, smog and strained city services for the region.

Bernson, a key backer of the Porter Ranch project, has criticized the environmental report as “grossly inaccurate” and demanded that it be rewritten.

Bernson, who did not attend the hearing, has contended that the report exaggerates the growth that could still occur in the area and the harm that such development would do. He argued that the plan was based on an erroneous worst-case scenario, which assumed that all legally possible development--called a “build-out”--would occur.

He has also said the report’s conclusions about traffic patterns were based on obsolete data and should be redone.

But speakers at the hearing, called by the city Planning Department to discuss the long-range plan that the environmental report evaluated, defended the report as an accurate prediction of what is in store for them unless growth is restrained.

“Bernson is saying we shouldn’t worry, that build-out probably won’t occur,” Susan Amerikaner said. “But that’s crazy. That’s like a military commander saying a Scud missile is not a problem unless they happen to fall on top of you.”

“Our quality of life is going down the tubes in proportion to the quantity of growth that planners and politicians allow,” said Preston Holland, a Granada Hills resident.

School board member Julie Korenstein, one of seven candidates seeking to unseat Bernson in an April 9 election for the 12th Council District seat, said: “Hal Bernson’s idea is to change the EIR to save the development. I have a better idea. Let’s change the development to save the community. The Porter Ranch project is simply too big.”

“We refuse to be inundated with traffic just because we have a councilman that never met a development he didn’t like,” said Leonard Shapiro, publisher of the L. A. Observer, who is also challenging Bernson in the election. “We cannot stand any more development.”

When one speaker pointed out Bernson’s absence and asked, “What does that say about his commitment to the community?” audience members jeered and hissed. One called out: “It’s his plan; let him come and defend it.”

Phyllis Winger, a Bernson aide, said the councilman had another commitment.