AGOURA HILLS : Land Acquired for Community Center

After months of negotiations, the cities of Calabasas and Agoura Hills have succeeded in obtaining from Los Angeles County a 4.5-acre parcel of land that the cities want to use for a regional community center and gymnasium.

Supervisor Ed Edelman has been trying to persuade the county to donate the land to the cities, but Supervisor Gloria Molina and other county officials have been reluctant, saying the fiscally strapped county should not be giving valuable land away.

Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to a recommendation by the county’s chief administrative officer, Sally Reed, that the two cities use money set aside under a state program for communities to purchase parkland and to build parks.

The county, which manages those state funds, will essentially release funds to the cities, which then will purchase the land from the county, said Joel Bellman, a spokesman for Edelman. The county would then put the money into its general fund.

Bellman said the county appraised the land, zoned for light agriculture, at somewhere between $600,000 to $900,000. According to Bellman, the county was appraising the land based on its potential worth as commercial property.

He said Edelman disagreed and an eventual $450,000 purchase price was worked out.

Calabasas City Manager Charles Cate said he was grateful to Edelman for persuading the county to reduce the asking price for the land. “Edelman has been a real friend to us in this,” Cate said.

But Cate added that he and other officials from two cities still believe that the county should have given the land to the cities, because the county obtained the land free from a developer in exchange for its approval of a project.

“Our position was that the land was dedicated to the county to begin with; they did not pay any money for it,” Cate said. “We would have liked the county in return, to dedicate it to us, since it is going to be used for city residents, and county residents as well.”

The $450,000 came from the Quimby Act, a state law that requires developers to contribute to a public fund for acquisition of parkland and construction of parks. The funds, in this instance, were administered through the county.

The county obtained the land through the construction of Lost Hills Business Park near Agoura and Lost Hills roads.

Audrey Brown, Agoura Hills’ community services director, said the cities have various options for a design for the facility. But the site could accommodate a 26,000-square-foot building that would cost about $3 million to build.

In July, 1993, the city councils of both cities approved the concept and directed staff to prepare a feasibility study once the county made the land available, Brown said.