Ominous Development : Will elected officials allow the public acquisition of Soka property for parkland? Or will they bend the rules to sacrifice the land to urban development?

Take the Ventura Freeway west out of the Valley, turn off at the Las Virgenes/Malibu Canyon exit, and you will soon find yourself heading through an unspoiled rural valley flanked by oak-covered hills. In the distance, the valley ends abruptly in a jumble of peaks and buttes backed by a 2,000-foot mountain wall.

Look closely and you stand a good chance of seeing browsing deer on the slopes near the road. Less often visible are the coyotes, bobcats and cougars that range the valley and surrounding hills.

Farther down the valley, with the peaks dominating the view to the south and west, you’ll pass Mulholland Highway and approach the entrance to Malibu Creek State Park. Here, on lush meadows rimmed with more than 4,000 oak trees, an organization known as Soka has asked Los Angeles County for permission to build a large, urban-type university of 84 buildings and three parking structures totaling 1,958,000 square feet--twice the size of Topanga Plaza!

Under the present county general and local plans, Soka has no entitlement to build an urban university here. The meadows and woodlands are designated for low-intensity recreational and residential developments compatible with the state park across the road.

The valley that Soka wants to develop is surrounded by high hills and mountains, with access by a two-lane rural highway that is already operating at more than its rated capacity.

Soka’s proposal would require major widening of Las Virgenes Road through the unspoiled Las Virgenes Valley. Farther south, where the road passes under the sheer 1,000-foot cliffs of Malibu Canyon, it could not be widened to carry the added Soka traffic except at staggering financial and environmental cost.

Soka could gain approval for its university only if the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors bent the rules and up-zoned this valley for urban development. It would seem incredible that any public body would do that, considering that environmentalists and park agencies have long looked on the Soka property as the best location for the main visitor center for state and federal parks in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Given the public interest at stake and the fact that Soka does not have the entitlements to build its university here, the logical course of action for the supervisors would seem to be the neutral one: Take no action that would increase or decrease the potential use or value of the property.

Unfortunately, some supervisors have a long record of sacrificing the public interest to the special interests of developers. In 1989, after 71% of Los Angeles County voters approved a state park bond initiative that would have provided funds to buy the old Renaissance Pleasure Faire site, the board, led by Supervisor Mike Antonovich, voted to up-zone the property, pushing the price beyond the reach of park agencies.

Soka seems to have an inexhaustible supply of money and no inhibitions about using it to influence the political process. It has hired at least four powerful firms to lobby the county, state and federal governments against the purchase of its property. Through March 31, it had spent $297,730 on lobbyists in Sacramento alone.

Based on Soka’s aggressive lobbying and the county’s record, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, believing it had no choice, moved to acquire the property by eminent domain.

In response, Soka has stepped up its lobbying efforts. In the past month, two committees of the Legislature came close to passing budget language, proposed by Soka’s lobbyist, that would have blocked the eminent domain proceeding.

The Board of Supervisors, presumably at Soka’s request, forbade the county to spend any money from Proposition A, passed by 63% of the voters last year, in any eminent domain proceeding. Antonovich and Supervisor Deane Dana have written letters opposing the purchase of Soka by eminent domain.

Few cities in the world have the natural beauty on the doorsteps that Los Angeles has. Unfortunately, through the years few local governments have been as insensitive to the need to set aside open space for their citizens as have those of Los Angeles, city and county.

In the past 75 years, Cook County, Ill., has bought for the people of Chicago--sometimes through eminent domain--more than 100 square miles of forest, meadows, streams and picnic grounds.

Where are the comparable regional parks established by Los Angeles County in the hills surrounding the Valley?

Despairing that Los Angeles governments would ever set aside open space for the mushrooming population, environmentalists began in the 1970s to turn to the state and federal governments.

This led to the creation of two still-unfinished state parks in Los Angeles County. One of them, Malibu Creek, preserves much of the west side of the Las Virgenes Valley across from Soka.

In 1978, Congress created the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Two years later, the Legislature created the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, with power to use a wide range of land preservation techniques to acquire open space for parks.

County government’s reaction has ranged from indifference to outright hostility.

Instead of maintaining consistent zoning and planning policies, the Board of Supervisors regularly bends the rules for favored developers and campaign contributors. Hillsides next to state and federal parks have been up-zoned to permit unsightly grading and urban development, spoiling the park experience for visitors. Pending acquisitions have been sabotaged by giving developers last-minute zone changes and density increases, pricing the land out of reach. There is good reason to think that this could happen in the case of Soka.

The issues surrounding the university have been clouded by debates over the nature of the controversial Soka organization and the academic standing of the proposed institution. To environmentalists, the issue is whether to put this urban development in an unspoiled valley--across the road from a state park in the heart of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a site that probably has the most spectacular scenic backdrop in any metropolitan area in the United States.

For 15 years, the National Park Service and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy have looked on the Soka property as the best possible place for the main visitor center, staging area and headquarters for the state and federal parks in the Santa Monicas. The reasons:

* The property contains more than 100 acres of level meadows rimmed with oak trees that are ideal for picnicking and recreation.

* A walk of only a few blocks over easy, level trails will bring the visitor into the heart of Malibu Creek State Park, with its spectacular buttes and gorges.

* The setting is exceptionally scenic, with rugged mountains dominating the view in three directions.

* Buildings already on the property, once a Claretian seminary, can be used for museums, a visitor center, park offices and overnight facilities for visiting school and church groups.

* The property is accessible by fast, level highway from the Ventura Freeway and is only 20 to 30 minutes from the heart of the San Fernando Valley.

The state tried to buy what is now the Soka property in 1978. Bureaucratic delays caused the opportunity to be lost. In 1980, the National Park Service began acquiring properties bordering the present Soka property. Funding cutbacks under the Reagan Administration brought purchases to a halt.

When the Soka organization bought the property in 1986, it reportedly assured the National Park Service that it had no plans for further development there. Then, in 1991, it submitted plans for the university development and began to lobby the county for approval.

Would Supervisors Antonovich and Dana be as quick to object to the use of eminent domain to buy the property for a sanitary landfill or a freeway to open the Las Virgenes Valley to condominium development? Isn’t the purchase of open space for parkland an important public function? Judging by the result of recent initiatives, the voters seem to think so.

The Soka purchase poses an especially clear conflict between a well-funded private interest and an overriding public interest. Current county plans do not permit urban development on this sensitive site. Soka knows that, and also knows it will be paid well for its land. It has the resources to build its university on a site suited to urban development.

Will our elected officials in Washington, Sacramento and the Hall of Administration uphold the public interest and not interfere with the purchase of the Soka property? Or will they bend the rules once again and snatch this property, too, from the hands of the public and sacrifice a beautiful, unspoiled valley and state park to urban development?