Porter Ranch Development Gets Council Panel’s Preliminary OK

A Los Angeles City Council panel granted preliminary approval Wednesday to a plan that would transform the 1,300-acre Porter Ranch area of Chatsworth into a residential-commercial complex that would house 11,000 people and employ 21,000 others.

The 5-0 vote by the Board of Referred Powers came after two hours of debate that included testy exchanges between Councilman Hal Bernson and Los Angeles school board member Julie Korenstein, who contended that the developer had not set aside enough of the land for schools.

Both elected officials represent the Porter Ranch area. Bernson has supported the plan--which has been in the making since 1987--and Korenstein has emerged as its most prominent official foe.

The plan given preliminary approval Wednesday regulates construction of a massive project on one of the largest undeveloped parcels remaining in the city of Los Angeles. Although school site questions dominated Wednesday’s debate, traffic impact has been the major objection of the project’s critics in the past.

The plan is scheduled to go to the full council for consideration on July 3.

The project, totaling 6 million square feet of commercial-retail construction and 3,395 residential units, could be expected to generate 150,602 vehicle trips daily, according to the city’s environmental impact report.

Under the plan, the Porter Ranch developer is now required to set aside, until the year 2000, a seven-acre site for an elementary school. The plan says an additional 15-acre site “could be reserved” for the school district to build a junior high school at some later date.

Korenstein argued that the developer should also be required to reserve a high school site. And she urged that the district be given more time to elect to buy the reserved sites.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who sits on the Board of Referred Powers, saw a silver lining of sorts in developing the huge property. The proposed Porter Ranch commercial core will act as a welcome “job magnet” for the growing population of the north San Fernando Valley and the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys, he said.