Would-Be Developer Says Plan’s Rejection Shattered His Dream

It was the end of a dream that started when Nedjatollah Cohan fled his native Iran with tens of thousands of other Iranian Jews to start a new life in Southern California.

Cohan made no effort to hide his grief two weeks ago as he broke down in the Thousand Oaks City Council chambers, sobbing openly as he lay on the floor.

The city had just rejected Cohan’s plans to build a shopping center and some houses in Newbury Park. Last week, after he was taken to a hospital emergency room, Cohan struggled to cope with the council’s decision.

“I’m under lots of grief still,” he said. “All I remember is I woke up in the hospital.”

Cohan’s story is a tangled tale that began with the revolution in Iran and ended in Thousand Oaks after a decade-long dispute over zoning and flood control facilities.

As projects go, it was one of the many developments that are routinely considered and rejected by government officials countywide. For Cohan, the rejection was a symbol of personal failure.

“I was so frustrated, and I didn’t believe this would happen,” he said. “I wish I had never bought in the Thousand Oaks area. I’ve lost everything on this property.”

Cohan has little to do these days except consider his misfortune.

In spite of the fact that a doctor has prescribed tranquilizers and advised him to stay in bed, he continues to visit his Sherman Oaks office and to talk about his failed project.

“People think because I have that piece of dirt, I’m a rich man,” he said, referring to the property that he owns in Newbury Park. “I’m not healthy. I’m 65 years old, and I have no income.”

The project that Cohan envisioned was an attempt to re-establish a once-flourishing real-estate venture that he had left behind when he fled Iran after the Islamic fundamentalist government seized power.

“I had lots of money when I came to this country,” Cohan said.

Cohan had paid $1.8 million to buy 85 acres on the corner of Kimber Drive and Reino Road. Studded with oak trees with a creek running through it, the land seemed like the perfect place to build.

Even in the beginning, Thousand Oaks officials indicated that they did not share Cohan’s vision.

Cohan clashed with the city repeatedly over the number of homes and the size of the shopping center that he wanted to build. Each time, he accepted conditions that reduced his commercial buildings and slashed the number of houses allowed.

“We didn’t like many of the conditions, but we agreed to them,” he said. “We really threw ourselves on their mercy. I did whatever council members asked me to do.”

And he was doing battle with the county flood-control department, which refused to allow him to destroy wetland habitats without extracting an agreement to build a storm basin to control flooding. Cohan would have to pay for the multimillion-dollar facilities.

Cohan said the taxes on the land were becoming increasingly burdensome.

By the time the city agreed to consider his project earlier this year, he had sunk an estimated $500,000 into the project.

And he was becoming increasingly frustrated and emotional because of the project, family members said.

Cohan’s son, Albert Cohan, had to bail his father out in 1985 after a lawsuit over the Newbury Park property drained most of his savings.

“We basically liquidated a European car dealership to get Ned out of bankruptcy,” Albert Cohan said.

Cohan’s other son, Maurice, 27, was killed by a drunk driver on Aug. 26, 1990.

Maurice Cohan was a vital part of the business, Cohan said. Soon after his death, Cohan came to the City Council pleading for a street in his development to be named Maurice Drive. His tears moved the council members, and they complied.

Some Thousand Oaks and county officials said Cohan has only himself to blame. They paint a portrait of a businessman plagued by his inability to compromise.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as tragic,” said Philip Gatch, city planning director. Cohan “really did not have the expertise in development with a complicated, multifaceted project of this nature.”

In addition to problems with the city, Cohan never understood the gravity of the flooding problems on his land, a county official said.

“The biggest flood plain in the whole town is down at Highway 101 and Borchard Road,” only a few miles from Cohan’s property, county hydrologist Dolores Taylor said.

“We were looking for a solution to that flooding. We were sitting there shrugging our shoulders and saying all our disaster money is spoken for,” she said. “He just didn’t want to pay for anything.”

Local residents contend that Cohan was unresponsive to residents who kept complaining about his development.

“He never really worked with us in any detail, and when we had suggestions he didn’t really do anything about it,” said Douglas Bisacchi, president of the South Knollwood Drive Homeowners Assn.

Some family members said his foes have misinterpreted Cohan’s contentiousness as an unwillingness to cooperate. They describe the balding, gray-haired man as a strong-willed patriarch who never wanted to walk away from his dreams.

Now, Albert Cohan said, “all of his dreams have been shattered. We might have to file for bankruptcy.”

Cohan said he does not want to abandon the project. Although he is deeply in debt, he is willing to go to court to finish his dreams.

“What happened to America? The reason I came to America was freedom. Freedom to work, freedom of speech, freedom of business, and I’m willing to fight for it,” he said.