Development Could Stop Soka Campus Expansion : Calabasas: By blocking widening of Las Virgenes Road, the proposed 938-acre Micor housing project could scuttle university growth.

When park administrators and Calabasas city officials speak publicly about the controversial Micor housing development proposed in the Santa Monica Mountains, they discuss such considerations as traffic volume, visual impact and open space needs.

They have kept quiet however, about a more critical factor.

As big and intrusive as the project may be, some insiders believe it holds the key to stopping a far more controversial proposal: The expansion of Soka University.

It could do so by blocking expansion of two-lane Las Virgenes Road, which many of the officials believe would have to be widened to accommodate the school’s plans to expand its rural campus to accommodate 4,400 students.

The Micor plan, however, involves donation to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy of about a third of a mile of frontage along the road. Conservancy officials acknowledged they would refuse to allow road construction on the land. The conservancy, a state parks agency, is a leading opponent of Soka’s expansion plans and also of Los Angeles County’s long-range plans to widen Las Virgenes Road.

Some Calabasas officials and others questioned about the matter this week expressed fear that publicity would awaken Soka and county public works officials to the implications of the proposal by Micor Ventures, Inc.

“Most of city politics is a poker game, but this is truly an intellectual chess game,” Calabasas City Councilwoman Karyn Foley said.

The proposed site of the 938-acre housing development lies outside Calabasas, but the city plans to annex the area. Some insiders voiced concern that Soka or county public works officials, once aware of the threat, would press the Local Agency Formation Commission--which rules on annexations--to make road construction easements a condition of the city absorbing the tract.

Soka spokeswoman Bernetta Reade said Thursday Soka officials “are not concerned” about the Micor project. “The first anyone heard of this was yesterday,” she said.

“I do not know whether or not specific people in our department are aware of that,” said John Engeman, assistant chief of planning for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.

In explaining their reluctance to discuss the issue, Calabasas city officials also expressed concern they would be accused of failing to review the Micor project on its own merits.

“When it comes to the Micor project, it has nothing to do with any other project or any other proposed project,” Councilwoman Lesley Devine said. “Every project has to be looked at in its own right, for better or for worse.”

But there seemed little doubt that opposition to Soka’s plans may have enhanced Micor’s prospects of winning approval for its gated community of 250 homes. Although the developers have been praised for offering to donate more than 600 acres of parkland and wildlife corridor, and for positioning houses out of sight of Las Virgenes Road, critics contend the project would also do serious harm to the environment.

Among other things, it would involve major land alteration, with about 7.5 million cubic yards of grading in the developed areas. The proposal also includes more than triple the 81 houses provided by the area’s existing county zoning.

Nonetheless, critics contend, some officials with the city, the mountains conservancy, and the National Park Service have gone out of their way to praise the project. For example, officials of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a unit of the Park Service, wrote a letter last summer extolling Micor’s environmental sensitivity--even though environmental reports on the project had not been completed.

“Everything should be taken on a case-by-case basis,” said Foley, the city councilwoman. But she compared officials’ awareness of Soka to “being on a jury when . . . the judge” rules some fact inadmissible. It remains “part of your conscious and subconscious thought process,” she said.

The final environmental impact report on the project is expected to be released today. City officials have not scheduled a date to vote on the project.

The portion of land that stretches alongside Las Virgenes road would be a wildlife corridor after it is donated to the mountains conservancy. It would connect with existing habitat areas north of the Micor development and to the west and south in Malibu Creek State Park.

Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the mountains conservancy, said conservancy and Micor officials began planning the open space areas in early 1990, before Soka announced its expansion plans.

Edmiston said that, with or without Soka’s plans, the conservancy would have wanted to block widening of Las Virgenes Road, which is designated in the county’s master plan for roads as a major highway of at least four lanes. The county and the city would require Soka and other developers in the area to pay for any road widening in return for construction permits.

Micor President Michael Rosenfeld said the firm began planning its project more than four years ago, and is not involved in any effort to stop Soka’s expansion.

The Micor property was left out of Calabasas when it became a city last spring, because a boundary line was accidentally drawn through the middle of the tract. To redraw the city boundaries to include the Micor property would have delayed the incorporation vote, so the Micor property was excluded with the understanding that Micor would apply for annexation later.

The company is seeking annexation, which is why Calabasas, rather than the county, is processing the development application. City Manager Charles Cate said Calabasas must adopt a preliminary plan for the area before the Local Agency Formation Committee will consider the annexation.

If the commission approves the annexation, the project will come back to the City Council for final approval.

Countering Soka Expansion Micor Ventures Inc. has proposed building a housing development between Calabasas and Soka University, which hopes to expand its campus in the Santa Monica Mountains. Plans call for Micor to donate open space, including significant frontage along Las Virgenes Road, to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, an opponent of the university’s plans. That could have the effect of blocking the widening of the road, which some officials believe is essential if Soka is to expand.