Soka University Acquires 2 More Mountain Parcels

Soka University announced Wednesday it has acquired more land despite a recent lawsuit that could clear the way for condemnation of some of its property in the Santa Monica Mountains.

School officials said the acquisitions were concluded before an eminent domain lawsuit was filed against the university Dec. 29 on behalf of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a public parks agency.

The latest acquisitions of 20-acre and 62-acre parcels, which drew immediate criticism from conservancy officials and some homeowner groups, means that Soka now owns 662 acres near Mulholland Highway and Las Virgenes Road.

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, an umbrella group of regional parks agencies that includes the conservancy, filed the Superior Court eminent domain lawsuit in an effort to buy 245 acres of Soka land for public parkland.

The conservancy wants to build a headquarters for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area on the site, but Soka refused a $19.7-million conservancy offer last year.

Soka wants to build a 3,400-student college on the site. And it wants to use the newly acquired 82 acres to build faculty housing, said Hodge Dolle, a lawyer for the school. The campus is operated by a Japanese Buddhist sect and is a sister school to Soka University in Tokyo.

Dolle said Soka was merely trying to expand its holdings, not interfere with the condemnation lawsuit.

“We think it’s a bogus condemnation anyway, so we’re really just going ahead with our business, which any property owner is entitled to do until a court says otherwise,” Dolle said.

Conservancy members and homeowner activists decried the recent acquisitions, saying it shows that Soka officials continue to be insensitive to their efforts to protect the mountainous area from overdevelopment.

“They’ve got expansionist tendencies. They’re going ahead with their development plans and that is not in the best interests of the park and the surrounding community,” said Marc Litchman, a spokesman for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. “They just continue to roll up the acreage that they plan to put their inappropriate development on. It’s the same old thing for them.”

In the past, Soka has continued to buy acreage in the area despite protests from some homeowner groups and public parks agencies. Litchman and William Wells, a spokesman for the Coalition to Preserve Las Virgenes, said Soka officials may have acquired the land to make it tougher for parks agencies to acquire the property. Or, they said, Soka expects to win the suit and is merely continuing development of the site, or expects to lose and wants more property on which to expand.

“Whatever the case, they’re going to play ‘til the bloody end,” said Wells, whose group of homeowners opposes any plans to build large developments on the property.

Soka obtained the 20-acre parcel on the northeast corner of Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland Highway on Dec. 29, in lieu of a loan it had made to the property’s owner, Boudreau Trust. To obtain the 60-acre parcel, just east of the 20 acres, on Dec. 21, Soka gave Boudreau Trust a 147-acre parcel of land it owned in San Diego.