WOODLAND HILLS >> A wooden gate swung in a cold breeze Friday at the Pierce College Farm Center, shuttered on its last official day of business.

The privately run Farm Center at Victory Boulevard and De Soto Avenue had for a decade drawn thousands to its year-round farm, produce stand and pioneer village, where each year ended with mega Halloween Harvests and Christmas festivals.

But then Pierce College administrators, in what turned out to be a controversial decision, ordered it closed the day after Christmas and to clear the campus by April 15.

“Everything has to be gone,” said owner Robert McBroom, who launched the Farm Center in 2005 in accord with a college plan to set up a money-making agriculture education center on a defunct vegetable stand that had sat empty for decades. “If I can’t effectively find a new home … I don’t know.

“I don’t have room for tractors in my Chatsworth front yard.”

The popular farm stand stopped selling Christmas trees and produce on Christmas Eve. By Friday, a half-dozen men were carting off unsold trees for recycling, while the center’s corn rows were shorn to the nubs. Only a few jars of honey stood on shelves once overflowing with local produce.

While the Farm Center normally reopens for business on March 15, it may have seen its last days on campus. It is not to be confused with the much larger campus farm.

In a mediation agreement, college administrators had claimed the college could “no longer financially support an entertainment venue.” When college administrators gave the 18-acre center the boot, they had no plans on what would replace it.

The Farm Center and the Foundation for Pierce College, former partners in the self-supporting “agri-tainment” venture, contend what they say was really a 30-acre working farm never cost the college a dime.

Rather, they say it invested $3.5 million into what was an official public-private partnership, while it contributed $2.1 million to the school. It also donated more than 50 tons of locally grown fruits and vegetables to local food banks.

A community backlash to the closure was intense. More than 15,000 residents have signed a petition calling for a state investigation into the Farm Stand closure. Four neighborhood councils also weighed in with Farm Center support, with more pending.

College administrators have called the eviction final, and have declined any media requests for interviews.

“We’re searching for another site,” McBroom said. “We know we couldn’t get the president of Pierce College to walk the Farm Center, but I extend my invitation to Chancellor (Francisco) Rodriguez.

“We’re being forced to close when I don’t have the space to house all this.”