Attorney Calls Fryman Lawsuit Financial Ploy : Development: The lawyer for builder Fred Sahadi claims the state parks agency is trying to depress the value of the 63-acre canyon site in order to buy it at a reduced price.

An attorney for developer Fred Sahadi said Tuesday that a lawsuit filed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is an attempt by the state parks agency to depress the value of Sahadi’s Fryman Canyon property as it seeks to buy the 63-acre site in the hills above Studio City.

Attorney Benjamin M. Reznik said the long-expected lawsuit is “part of a pattern of attempts to drive down the price of Mr. Sahadi’s property.”

For several months, the conservancy has been negotiating to buy the entire Fryman Canyon site, a steeply sloped area covered with oak and walnut trees and intersected by a stream. But the talks have often been tumultuous and the two parties have sharply disagreed over price. The conservancy says the canyon is worth $8.7 million and Sahadi has had it appraised at $13.7 million.

Conservancy Executive Director Joseph T. Edmiston denied Reznik’s charges, saying the agency’s lawsuit and its negotiations to buy Fryman Canyon are “separate questions.”

The lawsuit, which names both the city of Los Angeles and Sahadi as defendants, seeks to require Sahadi immediately to dedicate 32 acres of the canyon to the conservancy for parkland to meet one of the primary environmental requirements imposed by the city during its review of the project.

With deed in hand, the conservancy also would be positioned to prevent Sahadi from building a temporary road across the 32 acres, which, the park agency says, would ruin its value as open space. Sahadi plans to use the road to haul 388,000 cubic yards of dirt from one area of the property to another. His ultimate plan is to build 26 luxury houses on 31 acres of the canyon.

But Reznik said the conservancy is mistaken. The city did not require Sahadi to deed the property to the conservancy until after he had finished his project and had used a portion of the 32-acre site for the haul road, he said.

The attorney also claimed the conservancy has been aware of the proposed road for years. “But they’ve only become interested in it in 1990 when they are looking for ways to force Mr. Sahadi to sell his property at their price,” he said.

The alternative to building a haul road on the site would be to truck the dirt over winding city streets, Reznik said. The city, however, has required all the trucking to occur on the site, he said.

Without a way to move the dirt, he said, Sahadi would not be able to complete the project as now envisioned.

Reznik has claimed Sahadi is the victim of an effort by the city and the conservancy to acquire his property at a discount. He has said that effort included the city’s consideration--still pending--of an unusual plan to designate the canyon as a cultural-historic landmark.

The conservancy’s lawsuit claims the city Planning Department mistakenly agreed that Sahadi had met the open space condition when in fact it had “no evidence” the land had been transferred to the conservancy.

In 1986, Sahadi offered the 32 acres to the conservancy to satisfy one of the conditions imposed in 1982 as a prerequisite to obtaining a major development permit, known as a final tract map. On Nov. 3, 1986, the conservancy board accepted the offer; on March 5, 1987, a city official agreed that Sahadi had lived up to the condition. The city granted him a final tract map in October, 1988.

The city is also accused of failing to notify the conservancy that in 1986 it considered Sahadi’s request to build the temporary road. The lawsuit claims the conservancy learned of the haul road only in May.

Moreover, the lawsuit says the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act by not requiring a supplemental EIR to look at the consequences of the haul road. Construction of the haul road would “permanently destroy the open space,” Edmiston said.

The lawsuit was filed Friday, only days after Sahadi began minor construction work on the site and posted no-trespassing signs to shut down the Betty B. Dearing Trail, a hiking path that cuts across the property and was supposed to be dedicated for public use by the developer. The trail also runs through the disputed 32 acres.

Recalling that the trail was first opened to the public in 1985, Edmiston told reporters Tuesday at a news conference overlooking the canyon that “it’s a sad day when we have to file a lawsuit to regain that trail.”

Saving the canyon from development has become a cause celebre of a hardy band of environmentalists and several lawmakers, including state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal, (D-Los Angeles), who attended the news conference.

The conservancy’s lawsuit was supported by the filing of a lawsuit by the Urban Wilderness Coalition and Mulholland Tomorrow.