Homeowners File Lawsuit Over Warner Ridge Plan

A homeowner group sued Thursday to invalidate the Los Angeles City Council’s approval last month of the 690,000-square-foot Warner Ridge office complex, claiming the city’s environmental review of the project was a sham.

The civil action was filed in Superior Court by the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, the group that, with Councilwoman Joy Picus, has long opposed any commercial development of the 21.5-acre Warner Ridge parcel in Woodland Hills.

Robert Gross, president of the homeowner group, said in an interview that the city’s environmental review of the project “was not conducted in good faith” as required by state law.

The city only “went through the motions” of providing an independent environmental review to rubber-stamp a project that the developer had forced on the city through its own lawsuit, Gross said.

The developer filed a $100-million lawsuit against the city to overturn a 1990 council action permitting only minor residential development at Warner Ridge. Earlier this year, after the developer won a string of courtroom victories, the city capitulated and agreed to let a 690,000-square-foot commercial project and 125 residential units proceed.

Meanwhile, Jack Spound, a partner in the development team of Warner Ridge Associates that owns the property, predicted the homeowners’ lawsuit would “not interrupt our plans to build the project.” Groundbreaking is planned in April.

“We are not concerned with this,” he said. “Our project is one of the most heavily reviewed projects in the city. Volumes have been written.”

The suit alleges that the city’s environmental review of the project failed to comply with state law on several counts.

First, it inadequately defined the project, the lawsuit contends. “The true project,” the complaint said, “was to terminate the Warner Ridge litigation . . . regardless of the environmental effect on the Woodland Hills community.”

The lawsuit says that the environmental review failed to adequately assess the project’s effect on the Centers Concept of the city’s General Plan, which seeks to focus growth in certain areas, such as Warner Center, a regional commercial complex next to Warner Ridge.

The review also failed to describe the effect of grading to flatten Warner Ridge and the dumping of graded material on lands of nearby Pierce College, the lawsuit states. And it failed to adequately examine the homeowners’ own compromise that would have permitted 471,000 square feet of commercial development on the site, according to the lawsuit.

Gross has declared his intention to raise money to run for the 3rd District council seat, now held by Picus, in next year’s April election.

Picus is expected to run for reelection to the council, for mayor or possibly for the County Board of Supervisors if four new seats are created by a ballot measure facing voters in the Nov. 3 election.

“I’m glad they have filed,” Picus said Thursday. “I have a lot of confidence in Tony Rossman, their attorney. He’s won lawsuits that no one thought he could win, and I hope he wins this one.”