Warner Ridge Apartments Win Council Approval

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday gave the final green light for construction of 125 apartments at Warner Ridge in Woodland Hills, enabling the developer to take advantage of a revived housing market before starting the commercial phase of his project.

Builder Jerry Katell, who purchased the 21.5-acre lot and the rights to develop it in 1996, said he expects construction on the apartments to begin in May, and that the commercial portion may follow this fall.

The $200-million project’s original approval in 1992 called for its office space to be built first, with widening of nearby Oxnard and De Soto streets to accommodate traffic. But the council on Tuesday unanimously allowed Katell to delay the road improvements and thus begin on the residential phase first.

“The residential market is very strong right now, and we want to respond to that,” Katell said after the council vote.

Katell had contended that because the commercial portion of the project would generate the bulk of the traffic, he should be able to build the apartments without first completing the road improvements. City officials agreed, noting that the apartments would generate about 10% of the traffic.

The council’s action Tuesday was an anticlimax to a decade of fighting over a project that contributed to the downfall of former Councilwoman Joy Picus, who represented the area. Picus was voted out of office in 1993 after she was blamed for pushing the rest of the council into a losing legal battle, at a cost of $4.7 million, against the project.

Her successor, Councilwoman Laura Chick, said Tuesday she had approved the start of construction with some measure of reluctance after she and her staff worked with Katell and residents on a mutually agreeable way to start.

“This is not my favorite project in the world, but we have inherited very little running room on this,” she said before the vote.

Opponents had claimed the 690,000 square feet of office space in the project, just east of De Soto Avenue, would not only add more traffic to the West Valley, but also add shadow-casting high-rises to a neighborhood that has long enjoyed the undeveloped, rolling hills of the Pierce College farm.

But after a series of courts ruled against the city--agreeing with the developers that the city was twisting the law to block the project--the council in 1992 settled the litigation with the developers.

The project stalled in 1994, when a key tenant backed out of the deal citing the previous builders’ failure to secure adequate financing.

Katell, who built the Great Western Bank complex in Chatsworth and the Agoura Hills Business Park, purchased the site in 1996 and revived the controversial plan.

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In stark contrast to contentious public hearings in the early 1990s, only one person spoke out against the plan Tuesday. Shirley Blessing, a board member on the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, said there is still opposition in the area but people are resigned to the fact that there is nothing they can do to stop the project.

“We’re not happy with the decision, but we expected it,” Blessing said after the vote. “We don’t have influence with the city.”

Pierce College President E. Bing Inocencio, whose campus is next to the Warner Ridge site, said he does not expect too much new traffic from the project’s apartments.

Inocencio also said he hopes he is able to establish internship and other business-training programs for his students with whatever company eventually occupies the office portion of the project, adding that he has developed a good relationship with Katell.

On hearing of the council’s decision Tuesday, Picus said she would prefer the entire project be residential.

“I just chuckle every time I go past the site,” Picus said. “They [the previous developers] won the battle, but I won the war. They ended up with nothing.”

Katell said he hopes to complete the residential phase by early next year, and build some portion of the commercial phase before 2000.

Ken Bernstein, Chick’s planning deputy, said the city is considering eliminating the requirement that Katell widen Oxnard Street to accommodate the development because it may result in even more traffic on the road.

Instead, Katell may be required to donate the $160,000 he would have spent on the widening to a neighborhood fund to improve the roads in other ways.

Oliande is a correspondent and Tamaki is a staff writer.