Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : State to Pay $11 Million for Prison Property

State officials have tentatively agreed to pay nearly $11 million for county-owned land that they seized four years ago for a prison in Lancaster.

The value of the 262-acre parcel on Avenue J between 50th Street West and 60th Street West has been in dispute since 1990 when the state acquired the site, over the objections of local officials, for the medium- and maximum-security prison.

The state and county originally produced widely differing appraisals of the land’s worth, but recently arrived at a compromise after years of negotiating, said Deputy County Counsel Helen Parker. Those appraisals will not be made public until after the state Public Works Board approves the deal in May, attorneys for both sides said.

“We think we got a good settlement,” said Gerry Crumb, a county spokesman.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to put the money into a reserve fund that will eventually be used to help patch a projected budget deficit of up to $1 billion.

The state seized the land for Los Angeles County’s first state prison, a $207-million complex that opened a year ago.

At the time, community leaders in the Antelope Valley strongly opposed the Lancaster site. The city of Lancaster and the county sued to block the prison but lost when the state Supreme Court in 1991 refused to hear the case.

Meanwhile, the Antelope Valley community began to look at the prison in a more positive light as a source of about 800 new jobs and projected economic impact of $50 million annually.