College Drops Plan for Warner Ridge Purchase

A Pierce College policy council Tuesday killed a short-lived but controversial plan to buy and preserve the Warner Ridge property adjoining the campus, again opening one of the San Fernando Valley’s most hotly contested sites to possible commercial development.

In another disclosure, meanwhile, Pierce officials said the troubled campus, which had a multimillion-dollar deficit last year, also is heading toward a $1.8-million shortfall this year, sending campus leaders scurrying to find budget cuts.

The demise of the Warner Ridge proposal marks a dramatic end to the college’s past two years of leadership under former acting President Mary Lee. Lee proposed the $12.5-million purchase in December while seeking the permanent president’s job. But she later was passed over for the position and departed the campus, leaving her proposal to wither.

The action also marked yet another twist in the decade-long saga of the 21.5-acre Warner Ridge property. Surrounding homeowners for years have doggedly fought a developer’s plan to erect a huge commercial complex there. The development plans collapsed for other reasons two years ago, leaving the land vacant.

Surprisingly, given the history of the property, Lee’s proposal for the college to buy the site and preserve it from development never gathered much support either among campus groups or homeowner leaders who fought the commercial project.

With Lee gone, the Pierce College Council--a policy-setting group of faculty, staff and students--on Tuesday unanimously and without argument dumped the plan.

The council deleted the proposal from a $65-million package of desired improvement projects. The council’s remaining proposals will become the campus’ wish list for funding under a parcel tax plan being considered by the Los Angeles Community College District.

“It’s an expenditure I cannot support as Academic Senate president. I cannot defend spending $12 million for Warner Ridge when we don’t have a working telephone system” on campus, said council member and faculty leader Richard Follett, echoing others’ complaints that the campus has more pressing needs.

“The off-campus people just thought it was plain stupid. The bottom line is it was just inappropriate to be on that list,” added Bob Gross, former leader of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, which led the fight against the commercial project.

Originally, Lee talked of her Warner Ridge proposal as a way to protect and enhance the college’s existing 240-acre farm property, which adjoins it. The current owners, Warner Ridge Partners, have city entitlements to build a mid-rise commercial and apartment complex, totaling nearly 70,000 square feet, on their site east of DeSoto Avenue.

The college’s withdrawal as a prospective purchaser makes commercial development more likely in the long run. But real estate brokers and community leaders predicted that any near-term activity is unlikely, citing the still-depressed commercial real estate market in the Valley and a pending lawsuit between the two co-owners of the site.

After their commercial project collapsed amid a worsening economy in January 1994, developer Jack Spound and colleagues sued their partner, Morgan Guaranty Trust, a New York-based bank. Spound’s attorney, Harvey Friedman, said that civil case is due to go to trial in May in Los Angeles.

Some community members accused Lee of offering to have the college buy Warner Ridge to gain local support for her drive to win the president’s job on a permanent basis--a charge that she denied. But the issue became moot in mid-January when a campus selection committee did not include Lee among a group of three finalists for the permanent president’s job.

A college district spokesman said Tuesday that Lee is midway through a monthlong “opportunity leave” to explore job prospects outside the district.

Meanwhile, problems continue at the campus. Administrators there on Tuesday announced an emergency budget committee meeting for Monday to deal with the campus’ projected shortfall for the current school year.

Various regulations prevent them from eliminating classes or firing faculty members during the semester, so other expenditures will have to be trimmed, administrators said.

The campus, beset by aging facilities and a drop of about 25% in enrollment in recent years, has been struggling financially. The campus last year had a deficit that approached $2 million, administrators said, and probably will have to begin repaying that debt to the college district starting next year.