CSUN Leadership Changes Put North Campus in Limbo.

In the last two years, Cal State Northridge officials have changed plans for the future of a 65-acre plot of open land, dubbed North Campus, more times than most college students change majors.

First it was going to be a retail haven for the northwestern San Fernando Valley. That plan was scrapped in favor of a 15,000-seat football stadium and MiniMed Inc. biotech center. While the biotech center is becoming a reality, the football stadium plan was dumped in favor of entertainment sound stages and post-production offices. Then that idea was discarded and stadium plans were revived.

Construction has begun on 28 acres slated for MiniMed, and there is talk of tacking an additional 12 acres onto the project But for the 25 acres on the southern portion of North Campus, the university is no closer to development than it was in 1998, when the planning process started.

There are two reasons for the delays: hypersensitivity by the university's neighbors and a continual change in CSUN leadership, which has left the campus with no clear leader or direction.

Now the North Campus University Park Development Corp., the arm of CSUN that oversees North Campus development, has decided to return to square one and create a master plan for North Campus and the campus as a whole, something community leaders pushed for two years ago.

"Government entities are not known for doing things fast," said Bob Meyler, past president of the United Chambers of Commerce and a member of the North Campus development task force. "The project itself came to be second to the people involved."

The call for development on North Campus came in the mid-1990s after the board of trustees for the Cal State system recommended that universities find additional sources of income rather than rely solely on state funding. North Campus was then a mostly vacant piece of land north of the main campus that housed a decaying football field, a library annex and a small plot of low-income housing.

Former CSUN President Blenda Wilson moved forward with a proposal to lease the land to a developer for a retail center. Criticism from neighbors came almost immediately, and the university quickly backed down.

Richard Hardman, executive director of the Northridge Chamber of Commerce, complained that Wilson didn't ask for community input before putting out a request for proposals to develop the retail project. Retailers in the area opposed the center because they feared it would bring added competition.

"We thought she-had just unilaterally decided to do it because she had an edict from the trustees," said Hardman, who fought the retail proposal with area business owners. "We were told after the fact."

While community and business leaders applaud the decision to scrap the retail project, Hardman and others express frustration with the school's tendency to flip-flop on other proposals, rather than make tough decisions.

"There seems to be a terrible sensitivity there about criticism," Hardman said. "They're a bureaucracy and everyone is fighting for their job, and no one wants to make a decision because they're afraid it's going to make someone mad."

After the-business backlash, Wilson formed what would be the first of several North Campus task forces to study the issue of development. The task force, made up of local business owners and residents, recommended the university look for development that would both serve as an economic engine for the entire Valley and promote the university's educational needs in some way.

It made proposals to build a biotech facility, sound stages and post-production studios, and a 15,000-seat football stadium. Only the MiniMed plan has won approval.

University officials went back and forth on the football field because of protests about traffic and noise from neighbors. They continued to push an entertainment component for two years, though there seemed no interest from entertainment companies. Both proposals stalled, community leaders say, because no one from the university wanted to make a contentious decision.

After the neighbors protested construction of a new football field, Wilson scaled back her plans and created another task force to look into alternative locations for a stadium.

Wilson and university leaders also commissioned an opinion survey of Valley residents, which showed that a slight majority of residents supported a new football field on North Campus. Before leaving her post as president last June, Wilson announced that a football field would go on North Campus.

But university officials say they are still considering the issue. Wilson's departure and a continuing changeover of leadership have almost completely halted the planning process for North Campus.

"The crux of the problem is the change in leadership," Hardman said. "There's been such a turnover and a lack of stability."

Louanne Kennedy has been interim president since Wilson's departure, but has retreated from making any decisions on development, preferring instead to let the incoming president decide. The new president, Jolene Koester, will take over in June and has said she won't work on CSUN business until that time.

That has forced the University Park Development Corp. to hold back on approving any plans, with the exception of MiniMed, said Tom McCarron, head of the organization.

McCarron and a University Corp. task force are now creating a master plan to show how North Campus fits in with the rest of the university.

Because any decisions await approval from the new university president, it could be at least a year before any plans for the rest of North Campus are finalized.

"We're still in transition," McCarron said. "We don't feel rushed to make a decision."