Chasing After the American Dream Led to Nightmare

Each holiday season, the memories come flooding back to Calvin Barginear, reminders of a once-bright beginning that has dissolved into nightmare without end.

He pursued the American dream; now he’s been consumed by it. He planned for the future; now he’s haunted by the past.

Barginear worked all his life and saved enough money to buy some land. He planned to build a new family home, sell the remaining property and retire on the profit.

Today he is bankrupt, faced with more than $1 million in bills and no way to pay them. He lost his once-thriving business and has been unable to hold other jobs. His wife has been forced to return to work. He is locked in a court battle with Los Angeles County that he says is his last gasp to pull himself out of the quagmire.

The questions hound him. What went wrong? How could it have happened? And why? Mostly why.

Ran Gas Station

“I want to put my life back together, even though I know I can’t,” the 52-year-old Barginear said. “Not completely, not again.”

It started simply enough. Barginear and his wife, Barbara, 50, were longtime Malibu residents who operated a local tow-truck business and gas station. They worked alongside each other. They saved and borrowed enough money to purchase a 35.8-acre foothill property off Latigo Canyon Road in Malibu, where they hoped to build a new family home.

But soon they got squeezed between two uncompromising bureaucracies, and their plans began gradually slipping from their grasp. Their simple project grew ever more complicated, slowly disappearing under piles of red tape.

The county Regional Planning Commission gave them tentative approval for a 12-parcel subdivision in 1980, but the final approval was never granted because the California Coastal Commission refused to grant them coastal permits for the property.

The county would not approve the project without a coastal permit. The Coastal Commission would not grant the permit because the county changed its land-use plan for Malibu and the plan did not allow for the Barginears’ 12-lot subdivision.

Planning Oversight

County planners admitted that it was an oversight, but the Coastal Commission relied on the critical land-use document. Unless the county changed its plans, the Coastal Commission would only grant them permits for four lots.

County planners said they failed to include the Barginears’ property because they assumed that the Coastal Commission would honor the state Map Act, which protected many already approved subdivisions.

However, attorneys for the Coastal Commission said they were required to enforce the new land-use plan “at face value.”

County officials who interceded on behalf of the Barginears were told by the Coastal Commission that the family was a victim of “dual planning requirements.”

But their attorney says that the Barginears were just victims.

“This is one of those tragic cases that I hope we never see (again) in the history of California,” the lawyer, James Robie said. “The laws kept changing on them, and no one would budge an inch. It’s been a disaster.”

Barginear said they were told by county planners that his land would be “grandfathered in” by laws protecting previously approved projects. However, coastal commissioners and environmentalists wanted to remove any loopholes that would allow large developments--even though no one opposed Barginear’s project. Again, the Coastal Commission said it would not budge unless the Barginears’ lots were shown in the county land-use plan.

However, rather than amend its plan, the county decided not to pursue the matter, saying that if it changed the document, other developers would be seeking similar amendments to shortcut the approval process. As a result, numerous projects that were thrown into limbo during the same period were abandoned.

The Barginears refused to give up. Late in 1982, the county told them that they could develop a nine-lot subdivision. Once again, the Coastal Commission said it would not approve it unless it was reflected in the land-use documents. Disgusted and determined to get his 12 lots, Barginear let the nine-lot application expire.

His former attorney, Charles Greenberg, said that if Barginear had taken his case for nine lots directly to the coastal commissioners, he believes they would have approved it. County planner Bob Hoie said “it was all but certain” that Barginear could have received permission for nine lots.

‘Probably Should Have Settled’

“He was fighting for every last unit, and I’m not sure he was ever in a position to do that,” Hoie said. “People in that position, who decide to fight something all the way through the courts, usually have the resources to do that. In hindsight, he probably should have settled.”

In 1984, he hired Burtram Johnson, a land-use consultant, to act as a trouble-shooter between the various agencies. But nothing changed.

Unable to find relief, Barginear and Johnson asked the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to investigate the county’s handling of the case. The Chief Administrative Office responded with a report absolving county officials of any impropriety.

“What has happened to the Barginears is the most obscene thing I have ever seen,” Johnson said. “No one was willing to step in and say these people have been wronged. Instead, they’ve sat by and watched as this man and his family were destroyed.”

Things Got Worse

County officials who have been involved in the case say the Barginears were hurt by their inexperience in dealing with land-use issues and their unwillingness to settle for something less than their original goal. The length of the struggle only worsened the Barginears’ financial condition, they say, and backed them further and further into a corner.

But Calvin Barginear said they only wanted what they were entitled to. “What was so wrong with that?” he asked rhetorically.

In 1985, he took out a loan totaling $750,000 to pay for the land. The one bank that took the risk made them pay for it--at an annual rate of 31%. His total debt hovers around $1.3 million.

Desperate to find a way out, he tried a new tack. His attorney contends in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court that since the county asked him to build an access road down the middle of each of the 12 lots it originally approved, the road effectively subdivided the lots in half.

As a result, Barginear and his attorney argue, the county unknowingly created 24 lots when they gave tentative approval to the subdivision map. The county disagrees.

“Very clearly, theirs is a hardship case and it’s unfair,” said Peter Ireland, Malibu field deputy to County Supervisor Deane Dana. “But we got into a stalemate situation, and it seems like the best thing to do is to let a judge straighten it out. At least that way, he can have his day in court.”

Robie, Barginear’s attorney, said that the tentative tract map approved by county planners specifies that the property is zoned for one-acre lots, and that by subdividing the land, this “constituted approval of 24 lots as a matter of law.”

Too Long a Delay

However, attorneys for the county insist that if the Barginears wanted to challenge the map, which they say clearly shows approval of only 12 lots, then the family should have done so within 90 days after it was approved, before the statute of limitations ran out.

“Instead, (the Barginears) waited over seven years to seek intervention of the courts,” they continued. “The county defendants can no more strongly urge that this legal challenge is untimely as a clear matter of applicable state law.”

Superior Court Judge Fred Woods upheld that argument last month, allowing the Barginears to amend their suit. They did, but on Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Arnold Levin again denied their claim, saying that the issue should be decided by a higher court. Attorneys for the Barginears say they will appeal the decision.

“They’ve been trying to get around the statute of limitations,” said Richard Weiss, deputy county counsel. They have a right to raise the issue, but they haven’t raised it in a timely fashion. It’s far too late for them to challenge the map now.

“There have been a number of things that have happened prior to this point, but the county has attempted to assist these people. I don’t enjoy making people feel like they’re being victimized, but the county didn’t initiate the lawsuit. I don’t see how (the Bargainers) can win.”

Robie argues that the county has purposely delayed the suit as long as possible, knowning that the bank was about to foreclose on the Barginears. If the bank take their land, he said, the case becomes moot and the county won’t have to deal with the family any more.

‘Waiting Game’

“They’re playing a waiting game,” Robie said. “But this is not a game. You’re talking about ruining a family’s life.”

Barginear said that his dealings with the county prompted the lawsuit. They were responsible for the problem to begin with, he said, and now they are trying to block his only way out.

He said that if he can win his suit, he will be able to pay off his debts by selling the lots, worth approximately $100,000 each, to a developer. If he is left with only 12, he said, the $1.2 million he might possibly gain will not cover his losses, and the bank will take his property.

“If the courts don’t agree with me, we’ll be in a very bad way,” Barginear said. “I had high hopes for that piece of property. I wanted to use the money to send my kids to college and build my dream house. But none of that has come about.

“It’s impossible to imagine what we’ve been through. It just gets worse and worse. There’s no telling how much it really cost me, because there’s no way to put a figure on what’s happened to our lives.”