Forgiving of Trespasses : State Looks Other Way in Park Encroachments

State park officials have virtually ignored several private encroachments on Topanga State Park that were reported well over a year ago.

Files of the California Department of Parks and Recreation reveal a backlog of eight trespassing cases, most of them involving private homes, fences or other structures that stray a few yards into Topanga park or onto adjoining state lands acquired for the Backbone Trail. Several of the cases were reported by park rangers in late 1983 and the rest were noted even earlier.

In one case, parkland has been used to graze horses and, in another instance, virtually an entire commercial nursery is situated on park property.

None of the encroachments is interfering with visitor use of the park. And park officials for the moment are working to correct only the most extensive trespass, in which more than an acre of park property is being used by the Sassafrass Farm and Nursery, 275 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd.

Confusion Over Boundaries

The trespass was reported by a park ranger in July, 1983, and state surveyors confirmed later that year that virtually the entire nursery occupies park property. Park officials and owners of the business now are discussing ways to eliminate the trespass, either by eviction or payment by the nursery for the use of state land.

Park officials say they believe most of the trespasses arose through genuine confusion about boundaries in the rugged hills of Topanga, where little survey work was done in the past. They cite the nursery trespass as one they believe was purely accidental.

The owner of the nursery, Pamela Ingram, declined to be interviewed. But Paul Flowers, a consultant who is negotiating with the parks department on her behalf, said park officials have been understanding about Ingram’s predicament.

“They understand that here’s a woman that bought a piece of land years and years and years ago, and she thought she was buying the piece of land that the realtor showed her,” Flowers said.

Accommodation Sought

Then Ingram, who Flowers said bought her property more than 20 years ago, “all at once finds out that half her property doesn’t belong to her,” he said.

At a meeting last week, park officials asked Flowers to submit a specific proposal for eliminating the trespass, either by moving the nursery or buying or leasing the 47,700 square feet of state property it occupies. A long-term lease or sale would have to be approved by the state Legislature, park officials say. The cost of such a lease or sale has not yet been determined.

Flowers said park officials set no deadline for submitting the proposal, but there is “a gentlemen’s agreement we would try to stay on top of this and resolve the problem.”

Kirk Wallace, deputy regional director for the parks department, said the agency has taken no steps to resolve the other trespass cases. He attributed the inaction in part to manpower limitations and a turnover of key personnel.

The department’s district office at Newbury Park has about 55 employees to operate several state beaches, the Backbone Trail and four state parks--Topanga, Will Rogers, Malibu Creek and Point Mugu. Besides, the district office did not have a superintendent nor a chief ranger for several months last year after the men holding these two top positions were promoted to posts elsewhere in the park system.

Wallace also said the trespasses are not a top “priority based on the other jobs and responsibilities we have . . . . They’re not what I consider a high priority in that they have been there.” He said park officials would act immediately if confronted by a “flagrant” new trespass, such as grading on park property.

Park officials point to Topanga’s long, untidy boundaries as a reason for encroachments on the park. Topanga resembles a crumpled letter “A” with the top extending across Mulholland Drive into Encino and Tarzana and crooked legs flaring southeast and southwest to within a third of a mile of the ocean.

“It’s outrageous; it’s just bizarre,” said Ray Patton, chief ranger with the district office in Newbury Park, as he glanced at a map of the park on the office wall. Topanga has the “longest boundary for a 9,000-acre parcel, certainly of any place I’ve ever seen,” Patton said. “And it’s rugged country that hasn’t had surveys.”

‘Inherited Trespass’

In some cases, Patton said, land acquired for the park was already being encroached on for years, apparently without the previous owner knowing it. “The trespass was on a former owner, so we inherited the trespass,” he said.

In one case more than two years ago, the Legislature approved the sale of a sliver of the park to a homeowner who discovered that her sun deck and driveway extended onto state land.

In other cases, the trespassers clearly knew what they were doing. In the late 1970s, for example, a Rosario Drive resident was keeping storage sheds and rental trailers on park property. Parks department records show that the woman eventually removed the structures, but only after resisting on grounds that as “a taxpayer, (she) should be allowed to use the property.”

One of the current trespasses became known to park officials in 1979. Then it involved the Arthur Lake family, who had a metal horse corral and part of a wooden fence on parkland behind their home on Summit Trail. According to parks department records, the Lakes acknowledged they were trespassing and said they would observe the property boundary once it was clearly established by survey.

New Owner Notified

But years passed before a state survey team was sent to the area. The survey, completed in September, 1983, determined that the trespass included part of the backyard and eight to 10 feet of the house.

By then, the Lakes no longer owned the property. Parks department records show that the new owner was issued a trespass notice in December, 1983, and told he would be contacted by park officials within two or three months. However, the owner, Dixon Edgerton, said he had heard no more about the matter, which, he said, “is just fine by me.”

At neighboring Will Rogers State Park, on Topanga’s southeast boundary, a case of alleged trespass that was first reported in 1979 is scheduled for trial in May in Superior Court in Los Angeles. A lawsuit, filed by the state attorney general on behalf of the parks department, accuses Urban J. Didier of placing a retaining wall and hundreds of cubic yards of fill on park property adjacent to his Pacific Palisades home. A lawyer for Didier declined to discuss the case.

The city also has filed misdemeanor charges against Didier, accusing him of making illegal cuts into a hillside that could threaten the stability of several homes. That case is scheduled for trial in West Los Angeles Municipal Court later this month.