Agency’s Right to Seize Soka Land Is Backed

In a major legal victory for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a judge on Wednesday ruled 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 2-year-old 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 the university 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.

Even if the conservancy succeeds in condemning the piece of Soka’s property it wants, the school would retain the right to seek development permits for the remainder of its property.

Finally, the ultimate price of the property may be so high that the conservancy will be forced to sell off other pieces of parkland for development or allow ongoing acquisitions--such as the Canyon Oaks deal in Topanga Canyon--to fall apart in order to raise money.

Even if the conservancy can afford the ultimate price of the 245 acres it wants, Soka lawyers have threatened to sue to force the agency to purchase the entire 662 acres. Doing so would drive the entire parcel out of the conservancy’s price range.

Both sides agree it is unlikely that the final outcome of the battle will be decided by the trial courts. Both sides acknowledged that the Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court--possibly even the U.S. Supreme Court--will be the final arbiters of the case.

Already, the case has made one trip through the state Court of Appeal, which overturned a Ventura County judge who ruled in 1993 on many of the same issues decided Wednesday by Cooperman. In that case, Judge Barbara Lane ruled in favor of Soka.

Her decision was overturned on technical grounds earlier this year by the Court of Appeal. When the case comes back before the appellate court, justices will be asked to rule on the merits of the case.

As late as Tuesday morning, the conservancy and Soka had hoped to avoid the costly legal fight that lies ahead--a fight that will cost the public millions of dollars regardless of which side wins.

Under a tentative settlement agreement between the two, Soka would have sold to the conservancy much of the land it is seeking to condemn--including the historic Gillette mansion and grounds.

Soka, in turn, would have built a scaled-down campus of 2,500 students on the eastern part of the property. The deal would have taken effect only after the school’s plans were approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

But faced with intense criticism from a coalition of homeowners, environmentalists and elected officials, the conservancy board early Tuesday rejected the settlement offer and vowed to press ahead with the case.

One community activist at the meeting compared the board’s action to Adm. David Farragut’s famous charge through the log booms guarding the Mississippi River in which he cried to his hesitating ships: “Damn the torpedoes!”

Parks officials have wanted to obtain Soka’s property since the 1970s. The school rejected an offer to buy the property in 1992.

Lawyers for Soka have argued since the condemnation lawsuit was filed in December, 1992, that the conservancy acted improperly when it obtained permission from the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to proceed with the case.

Soka’s land is entirely within Los Angeles County, but approval from the Ventura County board was required because the lawsuit is technically being pursued by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority--a joint powers arrangement among the conservancy and two Ventura County parks agencies.

Soka lawyer Hodge Dolle argued that the conservancy should have received permission from the state Board of Public Works, which oversees most condemnation actions for state agencies.

While conservancy lawyer Robert McMurry conceded that the Board of Public Works is one of the avenues the conservancy can use to condemn land, it also has the absolute power of eminent domain. Other agencies with such power include Caltrans and the University of California.

“That is the only common sense construction the court can make,” Cooperman said in ruling for the conservancy Wednesday. He added that if state lawmakers had not intended the conservancy to have the power of condemnation “it would have been simple to do so.”