Lawyer Fires Back in Fryman Canyon Suit

An attorney for the proposed developer of Fryman Canyon said Tuesday that a lawsuit filed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is a bid to depress the value of his client’s 63-acre property in the hills above Studio City.

Attorney Ben Reznik said the long-expected lawsuit is “part of a pattern of attempts to drive down the price of Mr. (Fred) 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. The talks have often been tumultuous, and the two parties have sharply disagreed over price. The state agency says the canyon is worth $8.7 million, while Sahadi has had it appraised at $13.7 million.

Conservancy Executive Director Joe Edmiston denied Reznik’s charges, saying the agency’s lawsuit and its negotiations to buy Fryman Canyon are “separate questions.”

The lawsuit names the City of Los Angeles and Sahadi as defendants. It seeks to require Sahadi to dedicate 32 acres of the canyon to the conservancy immediately, which would prohibit Sahadi from building a temporary road across that land. The temporary road would provide construction access to 31 other acres of the site, on which Sahadi wants to build 26 luxury houses.

Dedication of the 32 acres to the conservancy was one of the primary requirements during the city’s review of Sahadi’s project, the conservancy’s lawsuit claims.

Reznik said the conservancy had misread the city’s tract map conditions. He said the city did not require Sahadi to deed the 32 acres to the conservancy until after he had finished his project, which allows the use of the 32-acre site for the road.

According to the suit, Sahadi offered the 32 acres to the conservancy in 1986 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.

In October, 1988, the city granted Sahadi a final tract map.

The lawsuit claims that the city Planning Department mistakenly agreed that Sahadi had met the open-space condition although it had “no evidence” that the land had been transferred to the conservancy.

The suit 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 that the suit said was supposed to be dedicated for public use.

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 band of environmentalists and several lawmakers, including state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), who attended the news conference.

The city is also accused of failing to notify the conservancy in 1986 that it was considering Sahadi’s request to build a temporary road across the land that was to be dedicated to the conservancy. The road was needed for hauling 388,000 cubic yards of dirt across the canyon.

Construction of the road would “permanently destroy the open space,” Edmiston said.

The alternative to building a road on the site would be to have the trucks haul the dirt through the winding city streets, Reznik said.

The conservancy’s lawsuit was supported Tuesday by the filing of a second lawsuit by two environmental groups, Urban Wilderness Coalition and Mulholland Tomorrow. That lawsuit parallels the conservancy’s charges, and disputes the legitimacy of a city grading permit issued to Sahadi.