NEWS ANALYSIS : Big Picture in Fox Expansion: Money, Jobs vs. Homeowners : Development: Studio continues to threaten to leave city if the project is denied. Frustrated residents say they feel left out of the planning process.

Opponents of the Fox Studios expansion project who arrived for a 10 a.m. public hearing on Monday couldn’t even get into the room because it was already crammed with studio supporters who had gotten there first.

The frustrated homeowners, including the leader of the organized opposition, cooled their heels outside, missing key testimony while they waited for a seat in the room to open up.

One explanation for their dilemma is that they were, well, outfoxed by a well-planned public relations campaign and outnumbered by supporters of the plan to add 771,000 square feet of office and production space to the Century City studio.

The project opponents, however, see being left outside the door as a metaphor for their role in a city planning process that, in their view, operates on a kind of might-makes-right basis.

“Our input will be discounted because we were not powerful enough or wealthy enough to have a lobbyist or make campaign contributions,” said Val Cole, president of the California Country Club Homes Assn., which represents a neighborhood near the project. “I already feel like our democratic process has failed us.”

Fox and city officials say they have done nothing but listen to the concerns of residents, most of whom appear to either support the project or seem willing to live with it if it is scaled back.

John Klein, president of the studio support group, Friends of Fox, said project opponents incorrectly focus on the little picture.

“They’re talking about walking their dog across Motor (Avenue) and we’re talking about an international film company that creates billions of dollars for the economy and thousands of jobs for the city.”

It is indeed their version of the big picture that worries the neighbors.

Since Fox announced its plans to modernize and expand 2 1/2 years ago, the studio, owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, has not backed off one square foot from its original proposal. It has, however, promised to ameliorate traffic and has received a clean bill of environmental health from the city.

Though outgunned by a developer with money, influence and savvy, sophisticated Westside homeowner groups are not without their own resources, and they marshaled them at Monday’s hearing.

Eventually, they did get into the hearing room, with their own hired experts on traffic, planning and economics in tow to rebut assumptions and conclusions of Fox and city experts.

At this point, though, a project that is bigger than the opponents want is pretty much fait accompli , despite protestations from Fox that the number of conditions they are being asked to meet is tantamount to “de facto disapproval.”

“Is that a polite way of saying no?” asked Fox Vice President David Handelman, referring to the array of concessions that speakers at the hearing were advocating.

Fox continues to threaten to leave the city if denied its full project, and many nearby communities would love to lure the studio from Los Angeles. Burbank and Valencia are among the locales actively wooing Fox.

Losing thousands of jobs, especially in this economy, is not a popular prospect at City Hall these days, so Fox, despite its protestations, has the upper hand.

City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who as representative of the area has considerable power to determine the project’s fate, said he supports the expansion and renovation of the 53-acre site--provided surrounding neighborhoods are protected from detrimental effects. That means taking care of the traffic, which would more than double at the Fox entrance upon completion of the project.

Toward that goal, Yaroslavsky laid out out his own conditions for Fox, which include three stages of development, with production space in the first phase and all traffic mitigation measures put in immediately.

Constant traffic monitoring and financial penalties will be a part of the package, though opponents worry about Fox’s role in counting its own traffic, even with city oversight.

If the assumptions on which the traffic projections are based prove wrong, Fox would not be able to go to the next stage of construction.

Yaroslavsky’s earlier promise to insist on a cutback of office space appeared muted at the hearing. He did recommend placing the final 100,000 square feet of office space in the third construction phase and said he hoped the project never gets that far. Yaroslavsky did not, however, condition his support on Fox cutting down the office space.

The reason for trimming the office space is to save on traffic. More than 1,000 car trips a day would be eliminated if 100,000 square feet were cut. The need for and the proposed use of the office space is a bone of contention with project critics.

Fox is at this point holding firm on its project as proposed. “I think Fox will be well-advised to soften its position,” Yaroslavsky responded.

Fox insists the office space is critical to house workers in a changing entertainment industry. Julie Liebeskind, an economist hired by the homeowners, disagrees. The office space, she said, is nothing more than a money-making office park that Fox intends to lease out to free-lancers connected with the industry.

Liebeskind also questioned the seriousness of Fox’s threats to move. Moving any significant distance away would impose a hardship on a major studio, she says, because entertainment businesses rely heavily on independent contractors who often free-lance for all the studios--and who are unlikely to follow Fox to a remote location.

The four residential areas closest to Fox have all weighed in with their disapproval of the current proposal. They are Cheviot Hills Homeowners Assn., California Country Club Homes Assn., Westwood South of Santa Monica Boulevard and Tract 7260.

“We can only conclude that the applicant, like any good developer, is attempting to get a project approved that is significantly larger than city ordinances would allow,” said George O’Brien, president of Tract 7260, which lies west of the studio between Pico and Olympic boulevards.

O’Brien said Tract 7260 is asking to have daily car trips reduced from 15,647 to 12,500.

The homeowner groups in opposition were joined by seven representatives of Temple Isaiah on Pico Boulevard who were concerned, among other things, about the negative environmental impacts of traffic and noise on students at the temple’s day school.

According to one speaker from the temple, the draft environmental impact report completely overlooked them, though they are just half a block away and have 800 children on the campus every day.

In addition to the Friends of Fox group, which studio officials say has 10,000 members, three Century City condominium association boards have voted to support Fox. The Beverly Hills City Council has voted qualified support, based on a stringent list of conditions to which Fox has not agreed.

Friends of Fox turned out about 450 people for Monday’s hearing, amid repeated charges from project opponents that the group is heavily padded with Fox employees and with people who do not live nearby.

A list of those who signed up to attend the hearing, as provided to The Times by Fox, shows that about one-fifth of the individuals or families listed do live outside the area. The large majority, however, had addresses with Fox-area ZIP Codes.

Just about the only new ideas at the hearing came from City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who now represents some neighborhoods close to the studio because of reapportionment.

In a later interview, Galanter said she generally supports the project, with reservations. “The movie industry is important to us and we literally can’t afford to ignore that,” she said.

But Galanter said the number of car trips needs to be trimmed. Her approach is to ask Fox to put 250 affordable housing units on its property. That way, its lower-end wage earners, who can’t otherwise afford to live on the Westside, wouldn’t have to commute.

That would cut down on traffic in a better way than widening streets, she said.

“I don’t think that the residents of West Los Angeles would like their neighborhoods to be eight-lane highways in every direction,” Galanter said.

Fox Vice President Handelman responded that there is no space for on-site units because the one open area of more than five acres is needed for their project, he said.

Slow-growth activist Laura Lake, who is challenging Yaroslavsky for the second time in the April City Council election, criticized Fox for adopting a “fist approach” to project opponents. “Losing families collapses neighborhoods too. You don’t want to drive out the middle class and have New York.”

Many people say politics--and the Lake-Yaroslavsky rivalry in particular--is at the root of the dispute over Fox.

At recent count, 62 double-sided signs were stuck in front lawns on Motor Avenue, a Cheviot Hills thoroughfare that ends at the Fox studio, and which has long borne the brunt of commuter traffic to Century City. One side of the signs says, “Zev + Fox = Gridlock.”

A Motor Avenue resident at the hearing was asked by a reporter why he opposed the project. “It takes 10 minutes now to get out of my driveway,” Stan Arcader said.

For the man who introduces himself simply as Orsini, a local restaurant owner, the issue is straightforward too. “It’s important to keep 20th Century Fox here,” he said. “If not, it’s the end of many, many businesses.”