Trustees Agree to Sell Vacant Land to Jewish Congregation

WOODLAND HILLS — Community college trustees Wednesday agreed to sell 17.5 acres of vacant land near Pierce College to a Jewish congregation that has long planned to build a temple there financed in part with a related housing project.

Woodland Hills-based Temple Kol Tikvah, the sole bidder for the property, will pay $251,000 to the Los Angeles Community College District to complete a transaction that began in 1986 when the congregation paid a $3-million deposit to obtain a 75-year lease on the property.

With the purchase of the property, the district will now have immediate access to the remainder of the deposit and the additional $251,000.

The site of former Pierce College corn fields is located south of Topham Street and east of the college.

Meeting at Los Angeles Southwest College near Inglewood, the college district’s trustees approved the sale by a 5-0 vote, with trustee Althea Baker abstaining and Lindsay Conner absent. District spokesman Fausto Capobianco said the district plans to spend the freed lease money on capital projects such as library automation.

Leaders of the congregation could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But Bob Gross, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, said he thinks that the congregation intends to pursue its earlier plans of building a temple on the northern five acres of the property and having a developer build 23 houses on the 12 acres to the south.

The site has a history of controversy. In 1988, leaders of the congregation, then known as Temple Shir Chadash, dropped plans amid neighbor protests to have the 12 acres developed with nearly 300 rental retirement units. Also that year, Gross’ group sued the college district challenging the congregation’s 1986 lease, a case the homeowners group later lost.

The college board decided in July to offer the property to the highest bidder above a $250,000 minimum price. Capobianco said the congregation was probably the sole bidder because any other buyer would have been required to honor the congregation’s long-term lease. “We really have no use for the property, and no one else did either,” Capobianco said.

Gross said his organization, despite its prior complaints, now supports the congregation’s plans for the temple and houses. “Over time, we got all that behind us,” Gross said of the past disputes. “It ended up being something that the community could live with. The official position of our organization is we’re pretty comfortable.”