Porter Ranch Park Deal Fuels Debate

The Los Angeles City Council will be asked today to approve a land swap to acquire 50 acres of valuable parkland in Porter Ranch, but some critics argue that the city should get the land for free.

“This deal stinks,” said Chatsworth businessman Walter Prince, a longtime critic of the giant Porter Ranch project, who maintains that Beverly Hills developer Nathan Shapell is actually obligated by a 1991 contract to give the land to the city without charge.

But others say no. “It’s a hell of a deal for the city,” countered Larry Calemine, representing the developer. Negotiators from the city and the Porter Ranch Development Co. always envisioned that the city would pay for the land, he said.

The latest dispute over the often-controversial Porter Ranch project will be fought today when the Los Angeles City Council considers the proposed land swap.

Under the swap, the city will acquire a hilly 50-acre park site in the heart of the 1,300-acre project and another 14-acre site in the southeast corner of the project. The total value of these properties, according to the city, is $7.6 million.

The 50-acre parcel--which is at the heart of the controversy--has been valued at $5.5 million by the city’s Bureau of Engineering and would be used as a public park.

In return, the city will give the developer five smaller park parcels scattered throughout the north San Fernando Valley, worth about $4 million. These parks are largely unusable for recreation, parks officials say. According to a city budget office report, anywhere from 100 to 150 homes could be built on these properties.

The swap has been endorsed by the budget office and by the Recreation and Parks Commission and its staff.

Last week, however, Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs questioned whether the deal was a good one when it appeared before the Arts, Health and Humanities Committee, of which he is vice chairman. At Wachs’ urging, the committee referred the agreement to the full council, but without a recommendation.

Wachs has often been skeptical of the parks department’s ability to negotiate successfully with private parties, and thus he balked last week when the Porter Ranch deal came before his committee with a vague and confused report, said Wachs aide Heather Dalmont.

Now, after reviewing the concerns expressed by Prince, Wachs has even more questions and can be expected to raise them at today’s council session, Dalmont said.

Councilman Hal Bernson, in whose district the disputed parkland is located, said Tuesday that the details of the land swap were unfamiliar to him and declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Prince confidently contended Tuesday that the land swap plan subverts the meaning of the 1991 development agreement between the city and Porter Ranch.

“The city is getting screwed if it has to pay for this,” he said.

Others also wonder about the land swap.

“I thought this was a straight dedication,” said city planner Charles Rausch, one of the city officials involved in negotiating the development agreement. “I don’t remember it being part of a land swap. . . . I don’t remember Recreation and Parks saying it was a land swap.”

In his 1991 report, Rausch identified a 50-acre public park as one of the benefits that the city would gain by signing the agreement. Bernson and other champions of the agreement also widely held up the park as one of the concessions extracted from the developer.

But others at City Hall, including senior parks department official Al Carmichael, agree with the developer’s interpretation of the contract, although they concede that the agreement may have failed to make it clear that the city had to pay for the 50 acres. An oversight? “Absolutely,” he said recently.

“The agreement doesn’t spell out that we have to pay for it, but still that’s what we’ve been talking about for five years,” he said.

Patricia Tubert, the deputy city attorney involved in the development agreement negotiations, said there may have been some confusion about whether the city had to pay for the 50-acre parcel in the agreement because the land swap talks and the development agreement talks took place separately.

But Tubert denied that the proposed land swap is a subversion of the agreement or that city officials duped the public in 1991 about the effects of the agreement. “I don’t think there was any misleading,” she said.

And Calemine puts a different twist on it. The contract does spell out the city’s contribution for the land, he said.

Moreover, with the land swap, the city acquires property worth $7.6 million for about $4 million, he said. And when Porter Ranch Development Co. develops the five park sites that it would acquire in the swap, it would have to pay the city standard park development fees that could be used elsewhere. “They are making out like a bandit,” Calemine said.

Porter Ranch Development Porter Ranch was approved by the Los Angeles City Council on July 10, 1990. The developer is Porter Ranch Development Co., led by Nathan Shapell of Shapell Industries. A quick look at the project. Cost: $2 billion (1990 estimate). Size: 1,300 acres. Housing: 3,395 residences, including 2,195 single-family homes. Population: Estimated up to 11,000 people. Commerce: 6 million square feet of commerical and retail space. Jobs: Expected to generate 20,000 jobs from resulting commerical development. Traffic: An additional 150,602 vehicle trips per day are expected in the area. Completion date: Originally scheduled to be built out by 2010, but nothing has been built to date.