Homeowners File 2nd Legal Challenge to Warner Ridge Project

A day before its environmental challenge to the Warner Ridge development goes to court, the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization on Monday launched a second legal assault on the project.

In a new lawsuit, the group asked that the state Court of Appeal void last year’s settlement allowing the project to be built, claiming it was negotiated in secret and without consideration of the development’s adverse effects on the neighborhood.

The lawsuit also contends that the Los Angeles Superior Court exceeded its authority in supervising negotiations and then approving the settlement between the developer and the city. “They converted what is supposed to be an open, public process into a private, confidential process,” said attorney Antonio Rossman, who represents homeowners opposing the commercial and residential project proposed for the northeast corner of De Soto Avenue and Oxnard Street.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus, one of the project’s most outspoken critics, said she supported Monday’s action.

“The homeowners were a significant party and they should have been privy to the negotiations. I am 100% behind the suit,” she said.

But a lawyer for the developer pointed out that almost all settlement negotiations are conducted in secret and that the homeowners had no role in the process.

“We are starting to get a little angry at this point,” said Robert McMurry. “When they start coming up with stuff as far-fetched as this, it becomes obvious that they are trying to . . . slow down the project by any means possible.”

At issue is the settlement reached last year in a suit Warner Ridge Associates filed against the city. The developer sued in 1990 after the city zoned its land to permit only about 65 single-family homes, despite a community plan that allowed a large-scale commercial project on the site.

The lawsuit claimed that the rezoning was a deliberate effort by Picus to block the development in response to political pressure from the Woodland Hills homeowners. A bitter legal battle ended in late 1991 when the state Court of Appeal gutted the city’s defense.

Under the terms of the settlement, the city agreed to allow the developer to build 125 condos and a 690,000-square-foot commercial project on the 21.5-acre site. The city also promised to give the project environmental clearance.

In the first case, the homeowners will go before a Los Angeles Superior Court judge today to ask that the city’s approval of the Warner Ridge project be overturned on the grounds that the environmental impact report was flawed. Even if the homeowners succeed in court today, they will continue to press their new case with the Court of Appeal, said board member Bob Gross, who is challenging Picus for her 3rd District City Council seat.

Calls to the Los Angeles Superior Court were not returned.