Planner Accused of Vote Conflict

A Los Angeles planning commissioner who also heads the Studio City Residents Assn. has been sued for allegedly mixing the two roles in an improper way in his opposition to the construction of mansions in the hills.

The $3-million lawsuit contends that South Valley Area Planning Commissioner Tony Lucente, who is also president of the residents association, improperly voted against a project to build five large houses. The vote came after his association hosted an opponent of the project at a meeting and published a newsletter article in opposition to the development.

“A judge would have recused himself,” said Robert Glushon, an attorney for the development firm NASHA LLC, which filed the lawsuit. “At the very least, he should have asked the city attorney for an opinion. He did neither.”

Lucente said there was no conflict of interest nor were there communications between him and the project opponents outside the formal hearings on the matter. The lawsuit does not accuse him or the residents association of having any financial stake in the outcome of the debate.

“I know there are no merits to this case,” Lucente said of the suit, which also names the city and seeks to set aside the commission vote rejecting the project.

In addition to the legal issues it raises, the case pits two well-known community leaders on opposite sides of a charged planning matter.

Glushon, former president of the Encino Property Owners Assn., served two years ago on the city’s elected Charter Reform Commission, which proposed creation of the area planning commissions as a way to involve more people from the community in local decisions.

Lucente serves on two city commissions, the planning board and the city Board of Neighborhood Commissioners. Glushon, an Encino resident, was an appointee of former Mayor Richard Riordan to the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners until recently, when Mayor James K. Hahn replaced him.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, stems from a proposal by developer Mikhail Cheban, and his firm, NASHA LLC, to build five large houses on lots of up to 46,000 square feet on Multiview Drive overlooking the Cahuenga Pass.

The city planning director had approved the project, but appeals were filed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and resident Mark Hennesey, arguing that the project would hinder wildlife movement in the hills and that the proposed houses were incompatible with the terrain and natural setting.

On June 28, the South Valley Area Planning Commission voted 3 to 1, with Lucente in the majority, to overturn the planning director and grant the appeals against the project.

Lucente’s vote was crucial because three votes are required to overturn the director.

The lawsuit alleges that two weeks before the commission vote, and while the appeals were pending, Lucente, in his capacity as head of the residents association, “introduced appellant Hennesey, and allowed him to speak against the project and in support of his appeal, at a meeting of the Studio City Residents Assn.”

Lucente said he introduced Hennesey but did not participate in the discussion among the residents group members.

“I presided over the meeting, but as soon as he was introduced I left the room,” Lucente said. “There was no ex parte communications.”

The association newsletter article named in the suit argued that the project threatened the wildlife corridor.

Lucente’s actions “while the appeals were pending before Lucente, as a judge and final decision-maker, reflects, at a minimum, a reasonable appearance of bias which required his recusal from voting on the appeal,” the lawsuit said.

Lucente said he did not write the article, but he agreed to put it in the newsletter because he routinely allows association members to write articles on issues of local importance.

The city attorney’s office is reviewing the allegations, spokesman Frank Mateljan said.