Soka’s Push for Expansion
Soka’s new proposal to build “only” a 2,500-student campus, rather than one for 4,500 students, is a ruse that only the terminally gullible will fall for.
Soka’s goal is to obtain approval for whatever size campus the county will allow, because they know that once the basic facilities are in place--offices, dorms, lecture halls, classrooms, roads, football and athletic fields--it will be easy to go back to the county in a few years and get expansion permits.
Once this open space is fundamentally rezoned for a college, even a small one, then there is no strong argument to be made against its continued growth. Pepperdine and UCLA are prime examples of how colleges just keep growing and growing.
Soka is quite prepared to wait and build in stages; its current plan envisions a build-out over 25 years. Can anyone guarantee that Soka’s “new” 2,500 student campus will never expand to 4,500 students, its preferred goal?
Allowing any campus of any size on that land is like allowing a burglar inside your house and hoping he won’t steal everything you have.
LES HARDIE
Hardie wrote as president of the Las Virgenes Homeowners Assn.
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