Study Predicts Confrontation in Land-Use Issues : Development: Negotiations along 101 corridor will get more complex and heated as new players enter fray.

The uneasy but productive give-and-take between developers and conservationists in the western Santa Monica Mountains is likely to turn more confrontational in the future as more and more political players jump into the fray, according to a study released Friday.

Rather than ending in settlements in which builders and environmentalists both walk away satisfied, negotiations over mountain land increasingly are complicated by the competing interests of dozens of public agencies and citizen groups, notes the draft report, “The 101 Corridor: Land-Use Planning and Intergovernmental Relations.”

“In the jargon of negotiating techniques, it has become more difficult to resolve land-use disputes . . . with a ‘win-win’ approach,” according to the study. “Future land-use disputes are much more likely to be dealt with on a ‘win-lose’ basis.”

That prediction is part of a broad research project examining the complex web of political connections that dictate how land is developed and preserved in the mountain communities that separate the city of Los Angeles from Ventura County.

The study was commissioned by UCLA Extension and UC Santa Barbara Extension and discussed at a daylong program in Agoura Hills on Friday. The report offers no recommendations but aims to stir debate and prompt cooperation between the residents, governments and builders in the corridor. Comments from Friday’s program will be incorporated into a final draft of the report.

Politically fractured into more than a dozen public agencies and home to more than 75,000 people, the Ventura Freeway corridor between the city of Los Angeles and the Ventura County line is typical of the competition and cooperation occurring daily among the state’s mishmash of jurisdictions.

The report concedes that the public agencies--which include four cities, two counties, state and federal park services and several special districts--frequently cooperate on major environmental projects, such as protection of Malibu Creek. Moreover, several of these agencies have agreed to pool resources to draw up a comprehensive planning guide for the area.

Nonetheless, the reports states, these agencies just as often pursue their own parochial agendas.

Bob Braitman, former Ventura County Local Agency Formation Commission officer, described the region as the “Yugoslavia of local governments.” Program coordinator William Fulton quickly added: “And everybody around here thinks they are Bosnia.”

But several players in the region’s environmental and political circles disagree with the report’s findings, saying that conflict between interest groups will continue to be the exception rather than the rule.

“I think there is a deep underlying sensitivity to what the land is calling for in the way it is used,” said Dennis Washburn, a Calabasas City Councilman and the city’s first mayor. “There is a keen understanding as to what the value of our resources are, and we all want to preserve as much of these resources as possible.”

Agoura Hills City Councilwoman Fran Pavley said: “There are always problems in any relationship, but I think we can overcome our differences.”

The authors of the report characterize the region as a homogeneous collection of affluent, mostly white suburbs separated not by race or economics but by the dramatic mountains that physically isolate neighborhoods.

“The political fragmentation of the 101 corridor and the tract-level sense of community identity throughout the area could lead to a destructive competition on land-use planning and fiscal issues throughout the corridor,” the report states.

For that reason, the report argues, reaching consensus on many issues is becoming nearly impossible. For example, although many residents of the region agree that protecting and promoting the adjacent public parkland is a top priority, few agree on the best way to do it.

Part of the problem, according to the report, is the increase in the number of municipal governments since the early 1980s. Even as residents of Calabasas, Agoura Hills and Westlake Village gained more control over local decisions when they incorporated, they increased the raft of agencies involved in every public discussion--making consensus that much more difficult.

And while Los Angeles County communities tend to cooperate on land-use issues, that cooperation has not extended across the border into Ventura County. The protracted battle over the Ahmanson Ranch development has pitted Los Angeles County officials and residents against their Ventura County brethren.

The result: Nine lawsuits are pending against the project, which preserves 11,000 acres as open space as it proposes more than 3,000 dwellings in the Simi Hills.

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According to the report, the complicated land swap that made the development possible was the latest and largest in a series of “development-conservation deals,” which enable cash-strapped parks agencies to cobble together public land and developers to build a project.

However, the report states, the deal may also be the last. “The more such deals that were made, the less tolerance certain homeowner and environmental groups had for them.”

Instead, the report predicts land-use disputes will more likely end up like the fight over Soka University land at the corner of Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland Highway. Parks agencies want the land as a headquarters for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, but Soka refuses to sell.

After a protracted public relations and lobbying fight, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy last year sued to seize Soka’s land through eminent domain. That lawsuit is pending.

“Instead of reaching an accommodation, all sides are more likely to fight to the death,” according to the report. Parks agencies will either acquire big chunks of land or lose them altogether.

Jerome Daniel, chairman of the conservancy’s board, remarked: “I don’t think that’s true at all. I think the mood of developers and environmentalists is getting much closer these days.”

But Jeff Ourvan, spokesman for Soka University, appeared to support the report’s claims when he pointed out that the school is determined to stay put. “I hope there is a balance that can be reached,” he said. “But Soka University is not moving. The only way they can get our property is to seize it from us, and I don’t think that is going to happen.”