Babbitt to Meet With Parkland Advocates : Recreation: The proposed acquisition of Soka University land will be discussed. The interior secretary met with school officials in April.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt will meet with proponents of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in Los Angeles next week to discuss priority properties for the park, including the Soka University land that park officials are seeking to acquire.

Babbitt, along with Reps. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) and Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), is expected to visit one or more of the sites that the recreation area hopes to purchase.

The Interior Department oversees the National Park Service.

“He will be meeting with them to discuss Santa Monica (Mountains) issues and to get a better feel about the acquisition options and what we can do proactively in the course of the next year and beyond,” Jay Ziegler, a spokesman for Babbitt, said Wednesday.

Beilenson requested a meeting after The Times disclosed this month that Soka University officials and lobbyists had a session with Babbitt in late April, a Beilenson spokeswoman said.

Babbitt is making a five-day California trip next week.

Babbitt’s willingness to sit down with Soka representatives raised concerns among recreation area advocates, who had not been given such an opportunity.

They regard the Interior secretary, a noted environmentalist, head of the League of Conservation Voters and governor of Arizona, as a natural ally in the high-stakes battle over one of the Santa Monicas’ most scenic properties.

Soka, which sponsors English and foreign language classes and a research center, is seeking to transform its 580-acre property in an oak-rimmed meadow south of Calabasas into a 3,500-student liberal arts college.

Park officials have long sought to make the centrally located and environmentally conducive property a park visitors center and headquarters.

Soka has offered to donate 71 acres to the park and build a visitors center in exchange for a commitment from park authorities to drop their opposition to Soka’s expansion.

Park officials, citing the destructive environmental impact of such a major development in the mountains, rejected the proposal.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that buys and manages land for the national recreation area, in turn made a $19.7-million offer for 244 acres of Soka’s property last year--which the university declined.

The conservancy then began condemnation proceedings to acquire some of Soka’s property through the power of eminent domain--a controversial process that allows government agencies to buy land from unwilling sellers for a court-established fair market price.

Soka is fighting the takeover in court and through legislative channels.

Jeff Ourvan, Soka’s director of community relations, said the session with Babbitt was intended to inform him of the university’s proposal to donate land to the park and proceed with its expansion.

Ourvan said Soka has not heard from Interior since the meeting.

“We’re very pleased,” Joseph T. Edmiston, the conservancy’s executive director, said of Babbitt’s June 5 visit. “I think he’ll want to get a balance” of views on the Soka situation.