Planners Back Offices, Condos at Warner Ridge : Woodland Hills: The commission’s 3-2 action upsets residents who wanted only houses built. A separate action to protect the developer also draws criticism.

In a decision that disappointed Woodland Hills homeowners, the Los Angeles Planning Commission voted 3 to 2 Thursday to approve a large-scale office complex and 125 condominiums at Warner Ridge.

And in a separate 3-2 vote, the commission angered the developer by recommending approval of an agreement to protect the project’s zoning rights for 10 years from changes in state or federal laws. The proposed agreement actually offers no protection at all, the developer’s attorney said.

Both actions, accompanied by grim portents of future political battles at City Hall and warnings about more litigation in a controversy that has dragged on since the late 1980s, still need final approval by the City Council.

Casting the decisive vote on the zoning matter was Commissioner Fernando Torres-Gil, called “the person of the hour” by commission President Ted Stein. Torres-Gil’s position had been unclear because he was absent last week when the commission ended its debate on the issue in a deadlocked 2-2 vote.

“As much as it pains me, I’ll support it,” said Torres-Gil. He acknowledged his sympathy for the community but said his decision was based on the need to deal fairly with the developer, Warner Ridge Associates, a partnership that bought the 21.5-acre site expecting the city would allow a commercial project.

Torres-Gil pointedly denied his decision was affected by court orders won by the developer in a bid to force the city to approve the project, or by a letter from Woodland Hills-based 20th Century Insurance Co., which employs 2,100, warning that it might move if the Warner Ridge project isn’t built.

The insurance company said it has outgrown its leased quarters in Warner Center and wants to move into Warner Ridge. But if the project is not built in time, 20th Century’s chairman said the company probably will move its headquarters outside the city of Los Angeles.

After Torres-Gil announced his intention to support the project, Commissioner Suzette Neiman, a longtime Valley resident, warned her colleagues that they would be “creating a behemoth” and making a big mistake by approving the 690,000-square-foot commercial project.

Antonio Rossman, an attorney for Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, told the commission that if it approved the project as proposed by the developer, there would be “years more of litigation” brought by his clients.

Rossman and homeowner group President Robert Gross urged the commission to approve a 471,000-square-foot commercial project identified as optimum in the city’s environmental impact report.

“It’s not exactly what the community wants, but we’re willing to live with it,” Rossman said.

The Woodland Hills homeowner group and its major City Hall advocate, Councilwoman Joy Picus, had sought to limit development on the site to about 60 single-family houses.

Urging its denial as proposed by the developer, Picus deputy Jim Dawson told the commission that the project violated the historic concept of keeping commercial development in the Warner Center area west of De Soto Avenue and away from residential areas. The Warner Ridge project is east of De Soto.

The homeowner group’s next chore is to try to persuade the council to reverse itself and reject the stipulated judgment it agreed to sign earlier this year, Rossman said.

Battered by adverse rulings, the city signed that court-sanctioned judgment to settle a $100-million lawsuit against it by the developer.

The lawsuit alleged that the council’s January, 1990, adoption of a Picus-sponsored ordinance to zone Warner Ridge for single-family housing deprived the developer of the true value of his property, purchased with the expectation that it could be developed with an office complex.

This 1990 zoning action was illegal because the city’s community plan allowed a more lucrative commercial project to be built on the site, the lawsuit further alleged. State law requires that community plans and zoning laws be in sync.

But the city settled the lawsuit too soon, before fully testing the strength of two court rulings that went against it in the litigation, Rossman told reporters later. One of those adverse rulings, issued by a Superior Court judge, was never even appealed by the city, Rossman said.

“If the council has the courage to say no, we’ll be willing to help defend them in court,” Rossman said.

The Warner Ridge team made only a terse presentation on the zoning issue. “We’ve worked seven years to get where we are today,” said Jack Spound, head of the Spound Co., a 50% partner in the development. “We looked at many plans for this project, and this is a good one. It works.”

Robert McMurry, attorney for the developer, contended that the commission’s vote designed to ensure the project’s zoning entitlements was a “worthless document” that did not provide the “added protection” his client needed to be assured that the city would not try to hurt his project.

McMurry said that if the council approves the development agreement, his client could either demand that it be paid $50 million, the value it has attached to its project, or seek a court order forcing the city to sign a stronger agreement.