Seventy Years Is a Long Time : Unusual lease deal in Marina del Rey raises serious questions

Everyone knows the real estate market is depressed these days, and it may be a while before it heats up again. But do Los Angeles County officials really believe that taxpayers are best served by locking up a lease of prime county-owned marina property for 70 years?

As one veteran appraiser put it, any lease arrangement exceeding 50 years is tantamount to full ownership. Another real estate expert consulted by The Times had a blunter description for the arrangement: “a gift.”

At issue is 18 acres of waterfront county-owned property in Marina del Rey. A proposed agreement between the county and developer Jona Goldrich--a prominent campaign contributor and political fund-raiser--would give him control of the property until 2062.

According to Ted Reed, director of the county Department of Beaches and Harbors, the agreement would encourage Goldrich to upgrade the property and build apartments and senior-citizen housing. The county would receive a percentage of what Goldrich collected in rents and boat slip fees.

But independent real estate experts who have studied the deal raise alarms. Stephen Dietrich, a Santa Monica real estate consultant who has publicly criticized the deal, says the county cut of the receipts is too low.

Dietrich and Fred E. Case, a retired UCLA management professor and veteran appraiser, both say that the county should be following standard private-sector practice--that is, seeking an annual income based on the value of the property. But that would be hard because, incredibly, the county has not appraised the property since 1984--so it doesn’t even know what this choice public land is worth. (A conservative estimate, Dietrich says, is $20 million.)

What else doesn’t the county know? And what else don’t county taxpayers know about this deal? Taxpayers--the real owners of this land--will expect answers when the Board of Supervisors considers this lease next month.