Japanese Bid for School Site Divides Neighbors

Studio City residents who are suspicious about a Japanese university’s plan for a satellite campus in their neighborhood say they want the school to find a new American home.

Operators of an Osaka industrial school are purchasing the campus of defunct Corvallis High School on Laurel Canyon Boulevard south of Ventura Boulevard. They have revealed plans to fly in up to 120 students for stays of up to 3 months to experience Western culture.

Although some neighbors are optimistic about the sale, others say the program could cause cultural shock to a quiet, 40-year-old neighborhood of single-family homes surrounding the abandoned high school site.

‘Doesn’t Belong’

“It doesn’t belong in a residential neighborhood,” Don Mellman said. “Not in any way, shape or form does it belong in our neighborhood. I’ll fight it all the way.”

Mellman and other opponents say they are turned off by the secrecy involved in the purchase of the high school by Osaka Sangyo Daigaku, the Japanese university.

The acquisition is being handled in a roundabout way. The owners of the Corvallis site, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary, are negotiating with a Los Angeles real-estate management firm, which is working for a New York law firm, which has been hired by an international trading company representing Osaka Sangyo Daigaku.

The Catholic order closed the 46-year-old high school last year because of declining enrollment. A plan earlier this year to sell the site to a condominium developer unraveled when nearby homeowners balked at the proposed 130-unit project.

The Japanese purchase is about 5 weeks into a 60-day escrow. The rumored selling price for the 3.6-acre campus ranges from $7 million to $9 million.

Once the deal is complete, the Japanese plan to construct a 2-story dormitory, a swimming pool and a lighted tennis court. To do that, they will need the permission of the city of Los Angeles.

Endorsement Needed

Representatives of City Councilman Mike Woo have told homeowners that city approval will hinge in part on the community’s endorsement of the Japanese plan. The city will look to the Studio City Residents Assn. in measuring community opinion.

Polly Ward, president of the residents group, said her association has not decided whether to support or oppose the satellite campus.

Negotiators for the Japanese say the university will drop its plan if peace cannot be reached with the campus’s neighbors.

“If it comes up too hostile, they’ll say no,” said Michael Johnston, president of ATM Property Service, the Japanese school’s Los Angeles representative. He said the university has looked at five other sites in California and Arizona.

Johnston met with Studio City residents this week to try to persuade them that the Japanese will be good neighbors. But he was questioned by homeowners worried that the school might be part of a religious cult or that the property would become something of a hotel for Japanese.

Neither will be the case, Johnston said. He said students will not have their own cars, and he disputed a recent television documentary that reported that Japanese university students do more partying than studying after completing rigorous secondary schooling.

“These are serious students, honor students,” Johnston said, explaining that Osaka Sangyo Daigaku has an enrollment of 23,000. “They’re very serious students, not rowdy.”

Residents attending the meeting had mixed feelings, however.

“One thing that is smacking me in the face is the covertness of this whole operation,” Stephanie Shepherd said.

Ed Berenson, vice chairman of the UCLA history department, said some of his neighbors are suspicious because they lack enough information about Osaka Sangyo Daigaku’s plans. He said the Japanese proposal sounds good to him.

“What I hear . . . is fear,” homeowner Jim Nagle said. He urged Johnston to provide “a warm body from the school” who can give the neighborhood details of the satellite campus plan.

Opportunity Cited

Homeowner Mark Rubin said the university plan seemed good at first. “It still does, if we have assurances this will remain a low-density school use,” he said.

And Patrick Avison, a homeowner association board member, said the plan could provide “an excellent cross-cultural opportunity” for both the Japanese and “for our immediate neighborhood.”

“They’re not Harvard or MIT, but they’re well-regarded, long established,” he said of Osaka Sangyo Daigaku.

Added resident David Axelrad: “The idea a school will be using the Corvallis property is wonderful. . . . It means you’ve got the lowest possible usage of that property. I don’t look on it as something fearful.”