State Loses Legal Round in Bid to Seize Soka Campus

A Ventura County judge dealt a potentially fatal blow Tuesday to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy’s attempts to condemn Soka University’s scenic Calabasas campus, long coveted by state and federal agencies as the site for a national park headquarters.

Superior Court Judge Barbara A. Lane ruled that the conservancy, a state agency that acquires parkland, erred when it secured approval from the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to launch condemnation proceedings last fall against the private school, operated by a Tokyo-based university.

Lane also determined that conservancy officials did not adequately consider the environmental effects of taking over 244 acres of the campus at the corner of Mulholland Highway and Las Virgenes Road.

Tuesday’s decision seriously undermines the conservancy’s first attempt to seize land through eminent domain--a process already under way in Los Angeles Superior Court. It also threatens to drive up the cost of the Soka property to the conservancy, even if the condemnation eventually succeeded, by as much as $10 million because of a state law that became effective Jan. 1.

Although Lane’s ruling does not invalidate the conservancy’s legal efforts, it does hobble them considerably, Soka lawyers said. “Let’s say it’s limping,” attorney Hodge Dolle said of the conservancy’s case.

Conservancy attorney Robert McMurry said the agency probably will appeal Lane’s decision.

The ruling was the latest round in a fight between the school and the parks agency, which wants the land for a headquarters and visitors center for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

The conservancy last year offered to buy Soka’s land for $19.7 million, refusing the school’s longstanding offer to share the site. But Soka administrators, in turn, rejected the conservancy offer.

They want to use the site to build a 3,400-student liberal arts college and language school. The current school is financially supported in part by the Japanese branch of the Buddhist sect Soka Gakkai.

Complicating the case is the state law that took effect Jan. 1 requiring that nonprofit agencies whose lands are condemned be reimbursed for any improvements and relocation expenses. That would considerably increase the amount the conservancy would have to pay, which would be determined by a jury after the condemnation.