Push to Acquire Parkland Focuses on Calabasas Site

Although there may be no money in the 1986 federal budget to buy parkland for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a variety of groups--including landowners, conservationists and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors--is already lobbying to influence what land will be bought if the funds come through.

To some park administrators and park backers, the budget vigil this year has taken on more than the usual urgency because a private tract in Calabasas long listed as a top acquisition priority now appears ripe for development.

In what has become an annual fall rite, National Park Service officials in Woodland Hills, whose acquisitions budget was exhausted months ago, are waiting anxiously to see how House and Senate committees will reconcile conflicting spending plans for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

Conflicting Bills

The House on July 31 adopted an Interior Department appropriations bill that included $12 million for land in the Santa Monicas. The pending Senate version grants the Reagan Administration’s request for no money for the mountain park.

Once the Senate bill is passed, probably within the next two weeks, House and Senate conferees will have to iron out the differences.

The outcome may determine the future of 272 acres along Mulholland Highway in the Las Virgenes Valley, long sought by the Park Service. It is owned by Quaker Corp., a real estate company headed by Los Angeles lawyer and businessman Leonard M. Ross, which won approval from the California Coastal Commission in September to develop a housing subdivision on the property.

The Park Service says it wants to acquire the land for the national recreation area because its rugged mountain scenery and abundant flatland are ideally suited to camping, picnicking and other recreation.

However, Quaker Corp. officials have said they are determined to develop the property and last month refused to let the Park Service send an appraiser onto the land. Quaker lobbyists also have been contacting congressmen and met Nov. 6 in Washington with Park Service Director William Penn Mott and Will Kriz, chief of the land protection division.

Quaker Vice President Saul Jacobs declined to discuss the meeting, other than to confirm that it took place. Park Service spokesman Duncan Morrow said agency officials made it clear that “we do, indeed, have a continuing interest” in the Quaker property.

Created by Congress in 1978, the recreation area encompasses 150,000 public and privately owned acres extending from Griffith Park in Los Angeles to Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County. Plans call for eventual ownership by local, state and federal agencies of about two-thirds of the land, with the other third remaining in private hands. The Park Service has acquired about 11,000 of the 36,000 acres it intends to buy.

Besides the push to acquire the Quaker property, the Park Service is under pressure to come up with $2 million to help purchase the 1,500-acre Adamson Co. property in Zuma and Trancas canyons in Malibu--the largest undeveloped canyon property in Los Angeles County.

May Raise Asking Price

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency, is in the process of buying 800 acres from Adamson for $6 million, and the owner has given the Park Service until Dec. 31 to come up with $2 million for the remaining 700 acres. Adamson officials have said they are likely to raise the price of the federal part if the deadline is not met.

The county Board of Supervisors passed a resolution Oct. 29 calling on congressional conferees to give “priority to acquisition in the Trancas-Zuma Canyon area.”

The resolution was adopted at the request of Concerned Citizens for Property Rights, an association of mountain land owners, which says the Park Service caused hardships for small property owners in Zuma-Trancas by identifying their lands for purchase but failing to come up with the money.

The Park Service so far has purchased about 2,800 of the 7,200 acres it wants to buy in the Zuma-Trancas area.

Quaker officials have cited the county resolution in their campaign to hold the Park Service at bay. “It seems to me they should finish with Zuma-Trancas first,” said Jacobs. There are people there “who have been waiting . . . years for the National Park Service to acquire their property,” he said.

However, Dan Kuehn, superintendent of the national recreation area, and Linda Friedman, an aide to Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), said that, in pressing their case in Washington, Quaker lobbyists made misleading statements.

For example, they said, a Quaker background paper inaccurately states that several state and local agencies had declared the Quaker property “not suitable for recreational purposes.” The Quaker paper also complains of Park Service efforts “to divert funds from Zuma-Trancas Park for the purchase of . . . Quaker.”

‘No Such Thing’

“There is no such thing as Zuma-Trancas Park,” Friedman responded. “The National Park Service has always indicated interest in acquiring the Quaker property” as well as land in the Zuma-Trancas area.

Asked to comment, Quaker vice president Jacobs said he did not write the background paper and was not familiar with it.

Both Kuehn and Beilenson, who sponsored the bill creating the recreation area, said they believe the $12 million approved by the House would be enough to buy the Quaker and Adamson properties and also acquire other tracts in the Zuma-Trancas area.

Beilenson said it would be better to save the Quaker tract “for the future use of hundreds of thousands of people” instead of subdividing it “for the use of 34 families”--referring to the number of house lots the Coastal Commission approved.

May Seek Court Order

Kuehn said that, if enough money is appropriated to buy the tract but Quaker still will not sell it to the federal government, he will recommend that the Park Service either condemn it or seek a federal-court order allowing an appraiser on it.

According to Park Service correspondence obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Quaker officials last spring refused to allow an appraiser hired by the Park Service onto their land.

The appraisal was arranged following bitter complaints by Quaker that the Park Service set an “extremely unrealistic” value on the land. In 1983, an appraiser under contract to the Park Service placed the value at just over $1.7 million. An appraiser hired by Quaker put the value at nearly $10.2 million early in 1984.

According to the correspondence, Quaker and the Park Service then agreed that the Park Service should contract for another appraisal. At a meeting in July, 1984, Quaker officials asked Russell Dickenson, then the director of the Park Service, for a hand in selecting the new appraiser.

Asked for Names

Dickenson responded that the Park Service and Quaker could not “mutually select” the appraiser. But he invited the company to provide names of appraisers to be solicited for bids and said the company would have a chance to comment on the choice. But Park Service officials informed Quaker earlier this year that they had selected appraiser John Wright of Granada Hills.

Citing their understanding with Dickenson, Quaker officials said they would not give Wright access to the property. Ross, the Quaker president, also complained in a letter to the Park Service that Wright is known for appraisals that “reflect extremely conservative property values.” Regional Park Service officials in San Francisco then apologized for having failed to notify Quaker and canceled the contract with Wright.

On Sept. 27, the Coastal Commission, which rejected Quaker’s plans for a residential development in 1983, approved a scaled-down plan for 34 homes.

The Park Service since has asked Quaker to let an appraiser on the land, which the agency says is “critically needed” for the park. Quaker refused.

Kuehn said he believes the current value of the Quaker property to be greater than the $1.7-million estimate made in 1983, but less than Quaker’s $10.2-million estimate of last year.

He expressed hope that the firm will allow the land to be appraised if Congress comes through with money to buy it. Jacobs of Quaker declined comment, saying the company will wait “until we see what Congress does.”