Couple Drop Effort to Buy Canyon Land

A Pacific Palisades couple who stunned members of a preservation group by offering to buy 5.5 acres of open land in Marquez Canyon and build up to five luxury homes there have withdrawn their bid.

In a letter to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which owns the property, Charles Beck said he and his wife, Gerry Relin, withdrew their offer to pay $1.75 million for the land because they were unable to arrange financing.

News of the offer earlier this month caused a stir among members of the Marquez Canyon Preservation Assn., which had been trying to buy the property to keep it from being developed.

Beck helped organize the group, and, until last month, was its treasurer.

The couple’s withdrawal leaves only one bidder, the Village School, whose $1.4-million offer was $200,000 less than it proposed during an earlier round of bids canceled by the conservancy board to allow the preservation group more time to make good its offer.

The preservation group’s $1.8-million bid was rejected last month because it had raised only $25,000 toward that figure.

Since then, the group, with the conservancy’s help, has pushed for the creation of a special tax district in the area near the canyon as a way to pay for preserving the property as parkland.

Conservancy officials agreed last month to delay selling the property to another bidder if at least 60% of the property owners in such a district agreed to tax themselves to pay for the property.

A professional polling organization, paid with funds provided by the preservation group, is supposed to survey Marquez-area residents to determine whether they would be willing to tax themselves.

If a survey shows residents to be receptive, the conservancy board will allow Los Angeles officials 30 days to begin setting up the tax district. The conservancy would sell the property if the city chooses not to pursue the matter.

An assessment expert has told supporters of the tax district idea that the cost of buying the property and keeping it as open space would be less than $100 per household annually over 20 years for the 3,500 households nearest the canyon.

Joseph T. Edmiston, the conservancy’s executive director, said the figure is closer to $80 if the canyon is simply preserved as open space, and closer to $90 if a soccer field and restroom facilities were to be included.

The conservancy obtained the land in March from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power as part of a complicated arrangement to help finance the purchase of Fryman Canyon in the hills above Studio City.

In an interview, Beck said the decision to drop the bid had nothing to do with the chagrin over the matter expressed by some of his neighbors.

“It was a defensive move,” he said. “Our thinking was that in the event (the group’s) efforts didn’t succeed and someone was going to develop there, it might as well be us. As people who live there, we think we would have been more sensitive about what is built.”