CSUN Revives North Campus Stadium Site

The Cal State Northridge football site advisory committee decided Wednesday to consider building a stadium on the university’s North Campus--a location that was rejected last spring amid neighbors’ threats to sue to block it.

The surprise turnabout at what was to be the committee’s last session came after CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson put the North Campus back into the mix of proposed sites, said committee chairman David Honda, a Northridge businessman.

Honda said he was taken aback by Wilson’s decision. “I’m surprised the North Campus came back into play,” he said in an interview Wednesday.

Wilson aide James Goss said the committee had incorrectly assumed that the North Campus was not an option.

Wilson responded through a spokesman:

“What prompts the authorization to look at the North Campus again is the realization that all of the sites considered so far on the campus have been unacceptable to nearby residents.

“We are listening. What we’re asking the community to do is listen with us to all groups and work with us to see what the best alternatives are.”

Neighbors of the proposed sites for the 15,000-seat facility have protested that they will be subjected to increased traffic, noise and other annoyances from having such a large venue in a residential area. Of special concern, according to homeowners, is the fear that the university would lease the stadium for rock concerts.

At Wednesday’s meeting, residents of several neighborhoods around the campus delivered angry messages to the university.

“There ain’t no place on this campus for a stadium,” said Bob Buckles of Northridge.

Raul Ruiz, who teaches at the university and lives nearby, said CSUN made a mistake in joining the Big Sky Conference, which demanded that a larger stadium be built for football.

“What you’re trying to do is destroy a community as part of being [in] this conference.”

The site advisory committee of university, business and community members was appointed by Wilson in August to study and recommend a location to her by Dec. 1. The panel has already voted to recommend two locations--off campus at Pierce College and on campus at Zelzah Avenue on what is now Parking Lot C.

But following that, Zelzah residents arose in protest. They had not been notified that the committee had suddenly decided to put the stadium at Zelzah, instead of near Halsted Street and Lindley Avenue.

Anita Santospirito, who lives on Zelzah, said CSUN has a history of failing to alert its neighbors to plans that would adversely affect their property.

“Dr. Wilson seems to have dealt with us the same way for many years,” Santospirito said. “As a result, she has a very angry constituency around this neighborhood.”

Other neighbors are no less angry at putting the stadium elsewhere on campus. That is why a plan to build the large stadium was abandoned in May. Rather than risk a lawsuit by angry neighbors, CSUN removed the stadium from the campus master plan before it was approved by the Cal State University trustees.

Any delay in approving the master plan would have killed the deal that CSUN made with businessman Alfred Mann to build a biotech park on the North Campus. CSUN has since signed a contract with Mann granting him a long-term lease on 28 acres for the biotech park.

The university is seeking to make a similar money-making arrangement with the entertainment industry to utilize the remainder of the North Campus land. The University Village Apartments are also on the North Campus, the portion of the school between Devonshire and Lassen streets.

CSUN spokesman John Chandler said it would be possible to use a portion of the land that had been earmarked for entertainment industry uses for a stadium.

“I don’t see it as interfering,” Chandler said. “It would be a relatively minor reallocation of resources.

The committee voted to study a North Campus location for the stadium without identifying a specific site. CSUN facilities planner Tom Tindall said he will return in two weeks with potential locations.

But one member of the audience, Ann Canter, suggested that it is the neighbors who need to act by “uniting as one large neighborhood and having one large lawsuit. We just can’t believe anything you tell us anymore.”