ENCINO : Tribe Joins Lawsuit Against Los Angeles

A Native American tribe has joined a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles challenging its authority to grant development permits on an Encino property that the tribe claims is an Indian burial ground.

The Fernandeno have become co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed on May 5, by a developer who said he lost money when the city allowed the project to go forward even though it knew, according to the lawsuit, that the project would probably be halted.

The portion of the lawsuit involving the Native Americans will be the subject of a hearing today in Los Angeles Superior Court. Arguing that the city has no legal standing to grant development permits on the underground part of the property, the lawsuit asks the court to bar the city from issuing such permits.

Deputy City Atty. Susan Pfann said the lawsuit was improperly brought before the court, claiming that any suit involving ownership rights should include the owner of the property, in this case, Albert Darakjian. “If they want to challenge the ownership of the property, then anybody who has a claim to that property should be in court,” Pfann said.

Pfann also said the suit should have been filed soon after the city issued building permits to the developer--Albert Cohen, owner of Drisson Corp.--and that time has run out under the statute of limitations.

According to the lawsuit, the property on the northeast corner of Ventura Boulevard and La Maida Street is part of the Lost Village of Encino, a Native American village and burial site long sought by archeologists and discovered in 1984.

The city cannot give a developer permission to dig into or build under the ground because the subterranean portion of the ground belongs to the federal or state government, the lawsuit claims.

The suit bases this claim on legal precedents dating back to 14th Century Spanish law, which distinguished between surface property rights and subterranean property rights. According to the lawsuit, the Mexican government owned the underground portion of the Encino property until 1848, when the United States took ownership as a result of the Mexican-American War.

In 1861, the California Supreme Court decided that owners of the land under Mexican rule, and subsequently American rule, had rights to the subterranean portion of their property. But 120 years later, according to William Jennings, attorney for the Fernandeno, the same court ruled that when the federal government had a special interest in a property, it did not give up full property rights.

Jennings argued that a Native American burial ground constitutes just such a special interest.

In the original lawsuit, Drisson Corp. said it lost $3.76 million in development costs and anticipated profits when it halted plans to build a large office building at the site.