Parks Agency Wins Eminent Domain Ruling

In a major legal victory for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a judge ruled Wednesday that the agency has the authority to use eminent domain to seize Soka University’s scenic Calabasas campus for parkland.

After a two-hour hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court, Judge Barnet Cooperman said it was “only common sense” to interpret state law as giving the conservancy the power to condemn private property for public use.

That question has been at the center of the two-year legal battle between the conservancy and Soka over the school’s campus at the corner of Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland Highway.

Outside the courtroom, conservancy executive director Joseph T. Edmiston slapped high-fives with jubilant staff members. He called Cooperman’s decision an “important threshold” in the case.

Soka spokesman Jeff Ourvan said: “I think there are a lot of steps to go. It would be a good bet that case will not be settled one way or another much before 1998.”

Although a considerable step forward for the conservancy, Wednesday’s decision by no means assures that the university’s property will fall into public hands. Although Cooperman said the conservancy has the legal power to condemn the land, he has yet to rule on whether it may.

Also, lawyers will return to court Dec. 8 to argue other issues relating to the conservancy’s right to take Soka’s land.

The conservancy--a state agency that acquires parkland--is trying to seize 245 of Soka’s 662 acres for use as a visitors center for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Soka, on the other hand, wants to expand its 200-student language school into a liberal arts college enrolling 3,500 students at the site, which includes the former ranch of razor magnate King Gillette.

If Cooperman, who retires from the bench in December, ultimately rules that the conservancy can take Soka’s land, then a jury will decide how much the school should be compensated for its property.

That process, too, is fraught with difficulties. If the jury values Soka’s property at more than the conservancy is prepared to pay--roughly $20 million--then the school has threatened to sue for damages.