Planners Back Approval of Casden’s $100-Million Project in Westwood

Los Angeles city planners on Friday recommended approval, with conditions, of a $100-million residential and commercial development in Westwood Village that has pitted community activists against multimillionaire developer Alan Casden.

The project, Palazzo Westwood, is scheduled to come before the city Planning Commission on Feb. 12. The project also faces scrutiny by the City Council and its Planning and Land Use Committee.

Community activists have complained that the complex would be too big and too high, that it would exacerbate traffic congestion and a chronic parking shortage, and that construction would require closing a stretch of busy Glendon Avenue for three years.

Opponents say the project should be capped at 221 apartments; Casden proposes 350.

Although planners recommended approval of the overall project, they imposed a number of conditions and modifications. Notably, they turned down Casden’s request to eliminate the “stepback” requirement for his five-story building.

The requirement, designed to keep a structure from seeming too massive, mandates that buildings more than 40 feet high be stepped back at a 45-degree angle, like stair steps.

“We’re going to have to do a significant redesign of the building,” said Ellen Berkowitz, an attorney for Casden. “It could result in the loss of some units.”

Planners also denied Casden’s request that he be permitted to narrow Glendon Avenue and widen the sidewalk, changes that would have eliminated a row of metered parking.

The planners’ reports also called for Casden to develop a traffic plan that would be in effect during construction. No decision was made about how long Glendon Avenue might be closed.

An opponent expressed dismay that the project appeared to be going forward substantially unchanged, even though one of Casden’s executives and 13 of his subcontractors have recently been indicted on charges of conspiring to make illegal campaign donations.

“It looks like it’s business as usual at City Hall,” said Laura Lake, co-president of Save Westwood Village. “They don’t even take felony indictments seriously.”

Planning Director Con Howe said the Department of City Planning did not concern itself with politics.

“We look at the plan and land-use merits or demerits of a proposal,” Howe said. “We’re not assessing whether we like or don’t like an applicant. Whether it’s Mother Teresa or Attila the Hun, you look at the merits of the project.”

The defendants, who were indicted late last year by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury, were accused of trying to get around campaign finance limits and hiding the true source of money by soliciting dozens of relatively small contributions from people who would then be reimbursed.

Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley has said that Casden, who was not indicted, was a target of the investigation.

Among those who received the allegedly tainted contributions were Councilman Jack Weiss and City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo.

The indictments, which were issued in November, in part prompted Weiss to announce that he would oppose Casden’s plan. Weiss said Friday that he had raised serious objections about the project in an October letter to Jon Foreman, a hearing officer with the planning department.

“My position remains that, given all that has transpired over the past several months, approval of this project is the wrong thing for the community and the city,” Weiss said. “The developers ought to go back to the drawing board and take the community with them.”

The transcript of a tape-recorded telephone conversation between John Archibald, the indicted vice president of Casden Properties, and a subcontractor, Larry Higgins of Higgins Termite, was made public this week by court order.

In the conversation, Archibald acknowledged that contributors had been reimbursed for their donations.

“The people contributed, you reimbursed them, and I’m telling you this thing is not gonna be as big as you think,” he told Higgins. “It is what it is. It’s ugly, but it is what it is.”

Times staff writers Anna Gorman and Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report.