Graders Roll In, Protesters Follow : Parks: Malibu Lake residents briefly stop work on a road through public land that owners of a nearby parcel are threatening to pave.

A dozen Malibu Lake residents parked their cars Tuesday morning in the path of bulldozers and dump trucks to stop the paving of a dirt road through Malibu Creek State Park--just hours after the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy approved a deal that is intended to keep the road as it is.

The heavy equipment was on its way to grade the mile-long road, which property owners Tom and Pat Randa said they will proceed to pave unless the conservancy comes up with $1.6 million for their five-acre lot by the end of the week.

“If they want the road unpaved, they have three days,” Tom Randa said from his home in Sonoma. “After that, it’s paved. I’m not going to sit around with my thumb up my . . . nose.”

Conservancy officials said Tuesday that they are moving as quickly as possible to arrange a purchase of the Randa property but added that the couple’s deadline may be impossible to meet. So work on the road, popular with hikers and equestrians, has continued.

Tuesday’s standoff between Malibu Lake residents and construction crews--which ended after about an hour with residents going home and the heavy equipment operators beginning work--was the latest skirmish in a 15-year battle over the property.

State parks officials want to buy the Randas’ property and make it part of Malibu Creek State Park; the Randas say they are willing to sell but that they haven’t been offered enough money.

The latest sticking point is a dirt road that cuts through the park to connect the Randas’ property with Lookout Drive. The Randas have an easement that allows them to pass through the park. Whether they also have the right to make improvements to the road is a matter of dispute.

The Randas want to pave the road to make it easier for them to sell the property and the dream house they built there but have never lived in. State parks officials do not want the road paved, and they have characterized the Randas’ threat to do so as a strong-arm tactic to force the state’s hand.

State parks Director Don Murphy has said a court must determine whether the Randas are entitled to pave the road, and has asked the couple not to take any action until then. Although the Randas agreed last month to hold off briefly at the urging of state Assemblyman William J. Filante (R-Greenbrae), Tom Randa said Tuesday that the state was trying to stall them further.

“A delay for them is a win,” he said.

Late Monday night, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy approved a plan that would allow the state parks system to acquire the Randa property. Under the conditions of the deal, the conservancy would buy about 1,000 acres that would connect Corral Canyon in Malibu to Malibu Creek State Park. At the same time, property owner Ernest Auerbach would buy out the Randas and half a dozen other property owners and donate the land to the conservancy.

Randa said he was amenable to such a deal but that he would not stop grading on the road until conservancy officials give him a negotiating timetable that meets with his approval. “There’s not even a time frame,” he said. “How old am I going to be before this is resolved?”

Conservancy officials said they are moving as quickly as possible to arrange the deal but that it might be impossible to meet Randa’s deadline. “Absent standing there with a certified check, I don’t know what they want,” conservancy lawyer Liz Cheadle said.

In the meantime, the state attorney general’s office is trying to obtain a temporary restraining order that would prevent any changes to the road until a judge can determine the Randas’ rights.