Parkland Purchase Was Overpriced Mistake, Expert Says

Lancaster officials who bought 22.5 acres of parkland for $1.1 million last December--paying 45% more than the seller had paid just three years earlier--say they felt no need to get an appraisal first.

But at least one veteran appraiser believes the city made a big mistake and is saying so.

After reading about the deal in The Times last week, Granada Hills-based appraiser John Wright, a 34-year veteran of the industry, wrote to city officials calling the city’s purchase “incomprehensible” and “dreadfully overpriced.”

The city paid nearly $49,000 an acre for investor Joseph Rivani’s land on Avenue K near 50th Street West. But Wright, who was appraising property about one mile away in Lancaster at the same time, said he believes a more realistic price would have been in the $30,000 range.

Wright said he has spent much of his career conducting appraisals for public agencies, including the state, Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles. His work with Los Angeles involved the city’s purchase of airport land in Palmdale many years ago. Wright said he has remained active in the area.

To illustrate his point, Wright cited a 37-acre parcel less than two miles from the city’s site that was on the market for $31,000 an acre last year when the city was buying. The owner had bought the land, already approved for home development, for $34,525 an acre in September, 1989, he said.

“It doesn’t take a calculator to spot the trend in value, and it is not upward, much less upward 49%,” Wright said in his letter.

He concluded by taking issue with the city’s contention that it struck a good deal. “Your city taxpayers did indeed get the very short end of a long stick,” he said.