What Price Curb Appeal? : City Balks at $1.05-Million Asking Price for Land Near Arts Plaza

Officials here boast that the $64-million Civic Arts Plaza will be the “premier arts center between Los Angeles and San Francisco” when it opens next October.

But the first thing visitors to the center may see when they enter the complex is Robert Heggen’s two-story clapboard house and adjoining storage yard.

After four years of on and off negotiations, the city has yet to strike a deal with Heggen to acquire his half-acre of property. And with the steel frame of the Civic Arts Plaza complete, no resolution appears in sight.

In fact, the city and Heggen are squabbling over whether his “equipment storage yard,” which Heggen says is part of a grading business he runs out of the lot, is an illegal junkyard. The city has asked him to clean it up, but he has refused, charging harassment. A hearing officer is expected to resolve the issue next week.

However, the real issue is whether the city will be able to purchase Heggen’s property. Officials said acquiring the land would not only make the Civic Arts Plaza entrance more attractive, but would ease traffic flow at the center.

“It would certainly be more desirable to obtain the land,” Mayor Elois Zeanah said. “But we’re getting to the point where decisions have to be made.”

Indeed, with construction halfway complete, officials said there is little time left to negotiate a deal.

The city’s last offer to Heggen was $420,000. But Heggen is asking $1.05 million, about $400,000 less than his original asking price. He insists that he will take no less.

Thousand Oaks officials say the request is out of line, and the city is moving ahead with plans to build three large cinder-block walls around his property. Markers showing where the walls will go are in place.

“We’ll just go around him,” City Atty. Mark Sellers said. “We never needed the Heggen property for this project. It would have been nice to have it, to dress up the corner. But we don’t need it.”

Sellers described Heggen’s appraisal of his property’s worth as “the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s absurd,” he said. “I’m not even going to take it to the City Council, this demand for $1 million. They would hang me.”

The city this month began taking bids on the planned walls, project manager Ed Johnduff said. Officials maintain that the walls will save money for the city because it will not have to purchase Heggen’s property.

But the walls will not be cheap. They are estimated to cost at least $150,000 to construct, with thousands more going toward architectural designs and related planning costs.

Zeanah said she is willing to include the cost of the walls in the city’s offer to Heggen.

“It’s obvious to anyone who goes out there and looks at his house that it would be much more aesthetically pleasing to the Civic Center if we had his property,” she said. “This is, after all, the entrance to the Civic Arts Plaza. This is going to be here for 100 years.”

Still, Zeanah said that Heggen’s asking price is unreasonable.

Although the city could seize the property through eminent domain, city officials said they have no interest in setting in motion the time-consuming legal process to acquire the property.

Heggen said his land, which has been in his family since 1946, is worth far more than the city is willing to pay because it is next to the Civic Arts Plaza. He said if he cannot work out a deal with the city he is considering putting a restaurant on the site.

City officials said that is not likely to happen. They said the 60- by 330-foot parcel is so narrow that it would be difficult to develop any business because of the city’s strict design standards.

“It might make a nice handball court,” Councilman Frank Schillo said, joking.

The city has made it clear in other ways that it is losing patience with Heggen. Immediately after he submitted his appraisal in October, he received a notice that his property had been declared a public nuisance and a threat to public health and safety. Heggen is challenging the claim.

A hearing officer will decide next week whether he must clean up his property and, if so, how much time he will be allowed to do it. If he fails to comply with a cleanup order, the city will do the job and bill him for it, officials said.