WESTLAKE VILLAGE : FDIC Pays Developer in Failed Land Deal

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has agreed to pay $7 million in damages to a developer who sued the agency for reneging on an agreement to sell 492 acres of land for a housing tract.

Irvine-based Baldwin Co., which had hoped to build 330 units of housing near Westlake Reservoir in Westlake Village, claims that it lost up to $50 million in future profits after the project fell through. Baldwin received a summary judgment in July in Orange County Federal District Court, said Eric Rowen, an attorney for Baldwin.

The $7-million figure was agreed upon by both parties and Baldwin has already received the money, he said.

Attorneys for the FDIC could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

U. S. District Judge Gary Taylor ruled that the FDIC violated its agreement with Baldwin when it sold the property to another party, Rowen said. Under terms of the original deal, the FDIC was supposed to turn over the land by 1993.

The FDIC changed its mind and decided instead to sell the land to the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, said Wayne Lemieux, an attorney for the water district. The water agency, Lemieux said, wanted the land because it feared that Baldwin’s development would pollute the reservoir.

The FDIC sold the property to the water district in December, 1993, for $6.5 million, Lemieux said. The water district later sold about half the land to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which wanted to use the land as a preserve for an endangered flower, Pentachaeta lyonii , which grew on the land.

The FDIC acquired the property in 1989 from the failed Vernon Savings & Loan.

Baldwin also has a lawsuit pending against the conservancy and the water district, claiming that the two agencies interfered with Baldwin’s attempt to purchase the land, Rowen said. Baldwin Co. wants to force the two agencies to turn over the land and pay up to $50 million in damages, he said.

That case is pending in Los Angeles Superior Court.