WOODLAND HILLS : Pierce College to Propose Development on Campus

The long-awaited Pierce College master plan will contain proposals for development on unused portions of the 400-acre campus in Woodland Hills, college President Lowell Erickson said Tuesday.

He assured neighbors that the plan, to be made public next month, will not call for housing or high-density commercial development like that of nearby Warner Ridge or Warner Center, but it may include a golf course or something similar.

“We are just as determined to maintain the open, agricultural and recreational character of our campus as any of our neighbors are,” Erickson said at the annual meeting of the Foundation for Pierce College.

Many residents, who have long feared that the college eventually would sell or lease surplus land to developers, oppose uses other than agriculture for the school farm, which covers more than 200 acres.

But Erickson said Tuesday that the financially strapped college, which was founded primarily as an agricultural school, “can no longer afford to leave great sections of our college campus undeveloped.”