Neighbors Upset by Plan to Move Dirt to College : Development: Pierce officials say the soil, to be taken from the controversial Warner Ridge project, would help prevent flooding.

What on earth does Pierce College want with 425,000 cubic yards of dirt?

That’s what neighbors of the Woodland Hills campus wanted to know when they learned that the college had been negotiating with developer Jack Spound, who wants to dump at Pierce the dirt he plans to bulldoze from ridgelines for his $200-million Warner Ridge development.

“That’s enough dirt to fill a football field 200 feet high,” said Margo Murman, president of the Coalition to Revitalize and Preserve Pierce College Farm.

President Lowell Erickson said Pierce needs the dirt to fill in some gullies on a hilly part of the school’s 200-acre farm to prevent the kind of flooding problems caused by last winter’s heavy rains.

“Victory Boulevard was a big lake,” Erickson said.

But homeowners remain suspicious that the college may have negotiated a “secret deal” to take the dirt in exchange for several hundred thousand dollars from Spound, a suspicion they base on an unsigned agreement that dates back to 1985. And they fear that the college might be stuck with some huge, ugly hill or, worse yet, that the dirt might be used to level the land to make it more attractive for lease or sale to developers.

Erickson emphasized that grass, trees and plants would be replaced if the college agrees to take the dirt. “It’s not like we’re building a shopping center,” he said.

Nevertheless, to alleviate homeowners’ concerns, the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees earlier this month asked Spound to pay $60,000 to prepare an environmental impact report on the dirt-dumping project. The developer agreed and, two weeks ago, the district chose Makagini Corp. of Los Angeles to do the report, which is due in June.

Meanwhile, the 21.5-acre Warner Ridge project at De Soto Avenue and Oxnard Street is stalled in the courts by a lawsuit. The Los Angeles Superior Court action brought by the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization asks that the project be stopped because the city’s environmental review of the project was inadequate.

Among other things, the suit alleges that the report failed to address the impact of the proposed dirt-dumping on surrounding homeowners.

The Warner Ridge project, which will include four medium-sized office buildings and 125 condominiums, was delayed for several years after the Los Angeles City Council denied the developer a permit. Spound and his associates ultimately won a long court battle against the city and the project was approved in September.

It was during court proceedings that negotiations about dumping the dirt at Pierce College came to light. Attorneys for the city and homeowners claimed in September, 1991, that a deal between Pierce and Spound was made in secret in 1985 in an attempt by the developer to buy support for the project.

Spound has previously denied that allegation. He failed to return telephone calls last week to discuss the dirt-dumping proposal.

According to an unsigned agreement filed with the court in 1985, Spound was to pay the college $200,000 in exchange for being allowed to dump the dirt on the campus.

College officials denied that a firm deal was ever made.

“There has never been any kind of formal agreement between Pierce and Warner Ridge Associates,” Erickson said.

But the project’s opponents seized on the alleged deal and the city report’s failure to address the impact of the dumping on the surrounding neighborhood. They also took their concerns to the Board of Trustees, which ultimately ordered the environmental impact report.

“It’s a critical issue,” said Robert Gross, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization. “And it became an issue because we made it an issue.”

Moving that much dirt from the Warner Ridge site two miles to Pierce College would require 21,000 truck trips on residential streets, Gross said. And the homeowner group has alleged that traffic mitigation measures for the dirt hauling addressed in the city’s environmental impact report--such as widening a stretch of Burbank Boulevard--are inadequate.

“They’re leaving an awful lot of unanswered questions,” Gross said.

He said some homeowners also fear that the college district might be sprucing up the land with the idea of leasing or selling some of the college farm because of the school’s dwindling agricultural program.

“Supermarkets have been trying to get on that property for years,” Gross said.

Murman said the farm coalition joined in asking trustees for the environmental impact report.

“The interest we have is to be sure that whatever is done is beneficial to the Pierce College farm,” she said.

The question, she said, is whether the decision concerning dumping the dirt at Pierce is being driven by the needs of the developer or those of the college.

“I would like to see the erosion and drainage problems addressed,” Murman said. “But the college has had these problems for decades.”

College administrators emphasized that the Warner Ridge deal is only one option.

“We’ve got all kinds of problems here with regard to drainage, sidewalks cracking, water problems in general,” Erickson said. “This is one way to take care of them.”

But Murman countered that the Soil Conservation Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture would have done a free assessment of the terrain problems without “the perception of conflict of interest.”

Erickson said that if the Warner Ridge proposal is finally approved, topsoil will be removed, the new dirt will be packed down, and the topsoil will be replaced and replanted.

“Is this something that’s desirable for Pierce College?” he said. “We have to have this analysis made to let us know all the ramifications.”

Murman said some homeowners also fear that 425,000 cubic yards of dirt--which amounts to 425,000 pounds of soil--is too much and might spoil the nature of that area of the farm.

“There’s no way we’re going to diminish the beauty of that campus,” college district spokesman Fausto Capobianco said. “This is quality dirt.”