Warner Ridge Land-Use Case Marks End of an Era for L. A. : Development: Planners say the balance of power will shift away from city officials, who once could easily impose parking, height and size limits on builders.

Planning authorities predict that the legacy of the contentious Warner Ridge legal dispute will be to shift the balance of power on development issues at City Hall in favor of builders.

And, homeowners, lawmakers and developers agree, the repercussions on how land-use decisions are made will affect the fortunes and lifestyles of thousands of people citywide because the legal principles involved went beyond the singular conflict of Warner Ridge, a vacant 21.5-acre parcel in Woodland Hills.

Not only did Los Angeles lose this one battle, they say, it apparently lost the war.

Settlement of the Warner Ridge lawsuit Wednesday marked the end of an era when members of the Los Angeles City Council, in the name of protecting local neighborhoods, could easily impose parking, height and size limits on developers who came to City Hall, hat in hand, seeking zone changes for their building projects, these authorities said.

In the Warner Ridge case, for example, the council drastically changed the potential use of a developer’s property, rezoning a parcel from commercial to residential.

As Councilman Hal Bernson, veteran chairman of the council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee, put it: “The courts said we exceeded our power. And I think to some degree we did.” The case was, he said, a “major watershed event” for city planning.

Homeowner activists, fearful that their clout has been diminished, hope that the state Supreme Court will eventually limit the impact of the case.

The Warner Ridge battle also has cast a cloud over the political fortunes of liberal Councilwoman Joy Picus.

Although some hail the west San Fernando Valley incumbent as a martyr who passionately and tirelessly tried to block a major commercial project at Warner Ridge, critics say she appears a bungler who cost the city millions of dollars with an ill-advised crusade. That will be a damning charge to face as she approaches a reelection date with voters in 1993.

During the bitterly fought Warner Ridge dispute, the public also got a new perspective--of how land-use decisions are made at City Hall--and of Picus. In sworn depositions for the case, the sometimes schoolmarmish Picus, once dubbed “Mary Poppins” by her peers, emerged at times as a hard-as-nails lawmaker.

The Warner Ridge affair--the fight over zoning of the site in the 6000 block of De Soto Avenue near Pierce College--ended Wednesday in an out-of-court settlement that was a victory for Warner Ridge Associates, the embattled owners of the property.

The partnership won the OK to build a 690,000-square-foot commercial project and 125 condominiums. The investors, which included Johnson Wax Development Co., a spinoff of the huge consumer goods firm, also won waivers from various city fees worth at least $20 million.

The settlement permits a project that is a far cry from the 65-residence development Picus got her colleagues to approve in January, 1990.

In their subsequent lawsuit, Warner Ridge Associates alleged that the zoning was illegal because the 1984 Woodland Hills Community Plan designated their property for commercial development.

A Superior Court judge and an appellate court panel agreed and ordered the city to rezone the property.

The principal lesson of Warner Ridge, Bernson said, is that lawmakers will have to be “more careful and more respectful of property owner rights. We’re going to have to make our decisions based more on the merits. In the past, we have sometimes been persuaded too much by homeowners and NIMBYs.”

Council President John Ferraro agreed that the Not-in-My-Back-Yard syndrome is a problem.

“We’re going to have to be a lot more cautious,” said Ferraro, who led the council in seeking a settlement to the lawsuit.

The appellate court ruling also established a key principle and, for the city, a damaging one: When discrepancies exist between the city’s zoning ordinances and its community plans, which provide broad blueprints for development, the community plans are paramount.

Thanks to the Warner Ridge dispute, the city is now faced with the prospect of “upzoning” thousands of parcels to make them match the community plans, paving the way, some fear, for more intense development citywide.

The result: Politicians lost considerable discretionary power and flexibility in dealing with building project applicants, lawmakers and developers said.

In the past, applicants who owned property zoned for less development than the community plan indicated had to obtain council approval to upzone their land. Such applications gave the politicians, working with bureaucrats in the Planning Department, leverage over the project and the applicant.

If the city does rezone properties that call for less development than the community plans, the owners of these properties will be able to skip the entire rezoning process--and the political negotiations it has traditionally entailed.

“We’ll have no mechanism for obtaining the kind of mitigations that neighborhoods often get through negotiation over projects,” said Jane Blumenfeld, Mayor Tom Bradley’s top planning liaison.

In these negotiations, developers frequently made concessions on extra parking, height limits, and the size and bulk of their projects to obtain the all-critical approval of the local lawmaker or the support of powerful homeowner groups that have the lawmaker’s ear.

The Warner Ridge litigation also makes it more urgent than ever for the city to update its 35 community plans, city planning officials widely agree.

Now that the Warner Ridge decision has reinforced that these plans are the governing bibles for development, it is all the more important to update them to reflect contemporary community needs, said Melanie Fallon, acting planning director. Revising a plan can take from five to 10 years, and the city is now considering a costly program to quickly update all of them, she said.

“Warner Ridge has been the alarm bell that we needed to make the revision of the community plans a top priority,” said attorney Carlyle Hall, who has been hired by the city to help assess the damage done by the Warner Ridge litigation.

The potential problem is sizable.

Fallon initially estimated that about 8,000 parcels were zoned for less development than indicated in their community plans. She recently said the number may be as high as 300,000.

To homeowner leaders such as Gordon Murley, president of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., the idea of large-scale rezonings is anathema. The need to adjust the community plans to allow less development is critical, he said.

The federation and the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, the local group that allied itself with Picus to fight the Warner Ridge project, plans to file friend-of-the-court briefs with the state Supreme Court in a desperate bid to limit the impact of the Court of Appeal decision.

The city of Los Angeles also plans to go to the high court. Last week, the Court of Appeal denied the city’s request to reconsider its Dec. 31 ruling.

Meanwhile, depositions in the case--leaked to the media last fall--gave the public a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse of how land-use decisions are made.

The court documents showed Picus telling the Warner Ridge developers that she would make “chopped liver” of them if they released a poll in 1989 concerning her popularity; telling Councilman Mike Woo that she might not vote for legislation he favored if he failed to back her on the Warner Ridge matter, and seeking to embarrass one of her colleagues, former Councilman Robert Farrell, a black, into dropping his support of Warner Ridge by divulging that the developers had remote ties to South Africa.

In her deposition, Picus also made it evident that she was opposing the project because it would be politically dangerous not to do so.

Finally, it was discovered that Picus had used city funds to underwrite the cost of busing a claque of anti-Warner Ridge constituents to City Hall to attend hearings.

Picus said the depositions would shore up her popularity because they showed constituents that she could play political hardball. And when her council colleagues voted to settle the suit last week, she objected, saying they were caving in to “greedy developers.” She cast one of the two votes against settlement, holding herself out as a fighter to the end.

But now, some are wondering if her constituents will remain admirers now that her Warner Ridge crusade has foundered.

In 1993, Picus faces reelection. In 1989, Picus just barely escaped a runoff against Peter Ireland, a former aide to Supervisor Deane Dana, who was the leading vote-getter of five challengers. Picus took 51.99% of the vote.

Warner Ridge may haunt Picus in the future, despite any short-term gains, predicted Ireland, now an official with a state parks agency.

“The perception is that she stood up for her community, that she’s a fighter,” said Ireland, who also had campaigned as a Warner Ridge foe in 1989. “But, in fact, she has led the community down the path of destruction. The community lost on Warner Ridge and responsibility for it rests completely on the shoulders of Joy Picus. She has bungled this.”

Bob Gross, president of the Woodland Hills homeowners group, agrees that the defeat will not help Picus politically. But he will not hold her accountable for it either, saying she was ill-served by the city attorney’s office and planning department.

“I don’t blame her,” Gross said.