City Agreement Might Reduce Residents’ Fire Protection : Porter Ranch: A new station will serve the sprawling project. An existing firehouse is expected to close.

An agreement that could save the developer of Porter Ranch millions of dollars in fire protection costs will probably leave many Northridge houses farther from the nearest fire station than city fire standards provide.

In the agreement, approved last summer by the Los Angeles City Council, officials waived a condition that Porter Ranch Development Co. install fire sprinklers in more than 3,300 new houses to be built in Chatsworth and Northridge. In return, the company pledged to build a new fire station to serve its sprawling project.

After the new station opens sometime next year, officials are expected to close Fire Station 8 on Tampa Avenue just north of Rinaldi Street. As a result, hundreds of existing houses in the Northridge hills will be beyond the approved city fire response distance. That number includes scores of houses that are already beyond the limit and will be about a half-mile farther still.

“Where’s the fairness in this?” said Don Worsham, who lives near the intersection of Reseda and Sesnon boulevards and is one of those affected by the change.

“We have to ask, is it right for them to be permitted to have this done at the expense of the rest of the community?” Worsham said. “Do you diminish fire protection in one part of the community . . . so that the obligation for sprinklers can be waived?”

City officials said the new station, to be built at 11800 Corbin Ave. on an extension of that street, will include a paramedic ambulance and other equipment Station 8 lacks. They described this as a benefit that may offset the extra distance.

“I think they have a legitimate reason to ask us questions,” said Deputy Chief Donald Anthony, referring to critics of the agreement. But “maybe there’s some trade-offs,” he said. The Porter Ranch company is building a $2-billion commercial-residential complex on 1,300 acres in Chatsworth north of the Simi Valley Freeway, including 2,195 single-family houses. Adjacent to the project on tracts in Chatsworth and Northridge, the company is to build another 1,127 houses.

Los Angeles’ Fire Protection and Prevention Plan, a part of the city General Plan, provides that houses in low-density residential areas be within 1.5 miles of the nearest fire engine company. The standard has been in effect for decades. Anthony said it is exceeded in at least 25% of the city and officials are working to bring all areas within it.

Portions of the Porter Ranch development are farther than required response distances from Station 8. For that reason, fire officials insisted that the development firm put sprinklers in each of the 3,322 houses or build a new fire station that would put the entire project within required travel distances.

Fire Department records indicate the department did not intend to staff two stations so near to one another, and that Station 8 would close. This would mean “a reduction of service to citizens” in Station 8’s district, according to a 1988 report in department files.

“We would like to have both . . . the sprinklers . . . and the fire station,” Anthony, of the Fire Department’s bureau of fire suppression and rescue, said in an interview. But Anthony said the city couldn’t require both and felt the choice should be left to the developers.

Anthony said fire officials eventually hope to have another station near Reseda and Sesnon but acknowledged that could be years away.

Many current houses in that area are up to two miles from Station 8, but will be more than two miles from the new station. Worsham’s house on Stewarton Drive, for example, is 1.9 miles from Station 8, but nearly 2.5 miles from the new station site.

Station 8 is also the nearest station to Beaufait Avenue, where a raging brush fire destroyed 15 houses and damaged 25 more in December, 1988. With closure of Station 8, which is 2.1 miles away, Beaufait’s nearest station will be at the intersection of Reseda Boulevard and Lassen Street, 2.6 miles away.

Porter Ranch and city fire officials point to each other when asked who pushed the fire station option, which appears to save the company a lot of money.

The firm will provide the land and spend $3.5 million to build and equip the new fire station, which will include two fire engines, a ladder truck, the ambulance and a staff of 12. According to a City Council report, it will cost the city $2.5 million per year more to run the new station than to operate Station 8, with its single engine company and staff of four.

Porter Ranch officials said they had no firm estimates of the cost of putting sprinklers in all 3,322 houses. But figures furnished to The Times by three fire protection firms suggest the cost would be from $6.6 million to $12.5 million. That is based on an installation cost of $1 to $1.50 per square foot for houses that Porter Ranch officials say will average between 2,000 square feet and 2,500 square feet.

Porter Ranch spokesman Paul Clarke, however, said comparisons showing a savings to the developer are misleading. He said the fire station is “money out of our pocket,” whereas sprinklers would be installed as houses are built and the cost immediately passed on to buyers.

“Quite frankly, we felt it was good for the community and a plus for us, in terms of selling homes in a hillside area, to have a fire station nearby,” Clarke said.

Although extensive city records show that the Fire Department would close Station 8 when the new station is finished, department officials questioned by The Times said last week that no final decision has been made. “It certainly is the assumption” the station will be closed, “but that decision has not been made, that I am aware of,” Deputy Chief Anthony said.

Fire Department records show that at one point during negotiations, Porter Ranch officials asked the department to deed them Station 8, free of charge, once the department no longer needed it. Fire officials refused, saying they would sell the property to the highest bidder should they ever give it up.

Asked why the firm sought the right to Station 8, Clarke said that in any real estate transaction, “you go in and negotiate” for something “other than what you’re ultimately prepared to accept.”

Critics of the agreement, who want Station 8 to remain open, say they don’t understand why travel distance rules are applied to the new project but not to existing houses.

Opposition to the arrangement did not surface until recently, months after the agreement was signed. Homeowners upset about the closure said they did not protest because they knew nothing about it beforehand.

Records show that several public agencies reviewed the deal--including the Board of Fire Commissioners, City Council and city administrative officer. But they focused mainly on fire protection needs of the new development, rather than possible loss of service to existing areas. The agreement itself addressed construction of the new station, not the closing of Station 8--another reason it drew so little attention.

The only public hearing on the matter was before city zoning administrators, who last fall approved a variance for the new station after a public hearing in Van Nuys. The hearing notice said nothing about closure of Station 8. The meeting was lightly attended.

Residents of the Park Northridge condominium complex near Station 8 were supposed to be notified by mail about the hearing, but leaders of their homeowners association said they weren’t. City planning officials said they believe the residents were notified.

“Apparently the city believes the CLOSING of a fire station does not impact the public, only the OPENING of one,” Paul Jackson, treasurer of the Park Northridge Homeowner’s Assn., said in a recent letter to City Councilman Hal Bernson.

“Although we understand the need for a fire station to serve the proposed Porter Ranch project, we feel a better alternative to closing 8 . . . would be to simply build a new complex inside Porter Ranch and operate 8 as a substation.”

Bernson is facing a reelection challenge and has come under attack for his support of the Porter Ranch project. As a member of the council’s Public Safety Committee, he recommended that the council approve the agreement.

Bernson aide Grieg Smith said Station 8 “is being replaced by a new, bigger station.” The response time to some houses “may be 30 seconds longer . . . and I doubt even that.”

On balance, Smith said, residents “are going to get better service out of this than they’re getting now.”