Thousand Oaks, Developers Seek Settlement in Longtime Dispute : Mediation: A November court date is set to resolve a 17-year feud over a 47-acre proposal in Newbury Park. But both sides are eager to negotiate a deal.

The task is daunting.

If mediators Jill Lederer and Chuck Dragicevich succeed this summer, they will settle an often chaotic dispute that for 17 years has pitted the city of Thousand Oaks against father-and-son developers Nedjatollah and Albert Cohan.

The Cohans won a state court ruling last November that said the City Council had unfairly denied them the right to build a 47-acre commercial and residential development in Newbury Park.

The city, fearing it could lose millions in a damage suit--originally set for August, now bumped to November--has been inching toward a settlement with the Cohans. And the Cohans, eager to move ahead with their project, are game to try their luck with mediation.

Enter the negotiators:

Lederer is the owner of 10 Domino’s Pizza franchises, has a Pepperdine MBA and has had mediation experience in smaller arenas. Dragicevich is a residential builder, has lived in Thousand Oaks for two decades and is making his dispute-settling debut.

Their first goal is to discourage the opposing parties from keeping that Nov. 13 court date. Both sides have logged many hours in court over the years and neither is eager to add to already-enormous legal bills.

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Their second goal is the more challenging: Make a deal both the city and the Cohans can swallow.

“All we want to do is come up with an agreement where everybody is happy,” Albert Cohan said. “We’re not in the litigation business, we’re in the real estate business.”

“I think if you can reach a settlement, that is always better than a roll of dice before a jury,” City Atty. Mark Sellers said.

Mediating the settlement is going to require diplomacy, levelheadedness and a willingness to endure hours of being locked in a room unraveling a dispute so passionate it once sent the elder Cohan to the hospital after he collapsed sobbing on the floor of the council chamber.

Sellers doesn’t expect mediation to require sequestration of O.J.-esque proportions, but he doesn’t see it as an easy way out.

“It could take a week, a month or three months,” Sellers said. “I don’t know. I don’t have any crystal ball. You just stay in the room and turn up the heat and try to reach an agreement.”

Dragicevich said he and Lederer have already begun meeting with the combatants individually. They plan to bring the two parties together for a series of private sessions.

He said he brings the viewpoints of both residential taxpayers and developers to the table. He has built more than 1,000 residential units from Newbury Park to Westlake. The Burbank-based company he works for, Pacific Greystone Corp., is building 123 homes at Lang Ranch.

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“I have a little bit of both sides in me,” Dragicevich said. “As a taxpayer I have something to lose, but I’m also a developer, and I can understand what the Cohans are going through.”

Builder Dragicevich is confident that he and Lederer will make a good team.

“Hopefully we have the best of both worlds,” he said. “I’m close to the developer’s side and Jill knows the business perspective.”

Lederer is a former chairwoman of the Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce board of directors. She owns pizza franchises all over Thousand Oaks and the west San Fernando Valley.

She also knows politics, having run Councilman Andy Fox’s highly successful campaign last fall. Lederer’s name was among those on a list proposed by the five council members, and after the elder Cohan met with her, he approved her as a mediator.

Last week, Lederer was poring over the records of the long dispute, preparing herself for the negotiations. At Pepperdine she studied mediation as part of her international business curriculum, and as chamber chairwoman she has some experience with dispute settlement. But anything this complex?

“ Noooo ,” Lederer said with a laugh. But like Dragicevich, she is optimistic.

“I do feel that it is important in any mediation process that both sides need to be willing,” she said. “My impression so far is that both sides are willing.”

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Absolutely, said Albert Cohan. He wants his father, an Iranian immigrant, to finally realize his dream of building on their land at Reino Road and Kimber Drive.

“My father deserves to get something out of this property,” Albert Cohan said.

The November ruling in state appellate court was the first victory for the family in many years. Since Ned Cohan bought the land in 1977, he has experienced many of the calamities developers dread.

From the beginning, neighbors hated the idea of the proposed strip mall and 120-home residential complex. They fought it fiercely, going to council meetings to rail against it.

At one point, Ned Cohan went bankrupt. Borrowing money and selling off land in the city of Ventura, he managed to bounce back. But the threat of bankruptcy still looms, his son said.

Last year, bird lovers said they spotted a western yellow-billed cuckoo, an endangered species, on the land. City officials never found any of the rare birds, but the project was thrown into turmoil while they looked.

Two months ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers looked over the land and found that winter rains had increased the portion of the Cohan’s property deemed to be wetlands from eight to 13 acres. That means they lost five acres of building space, which they estimate will cost them $2.5 million.

Then the Cohans lost their anchor store for the strip mall, a Ralphs supermarket. Because there are several other supermarkets nearby, the Cohans doubt they can replace Ralphs with another chain, leaving them without an anchor. Albert Cohan said they may decide to build only a residential development as a result.

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Interest rates have risen considerably since they first planned the project, increasing the cost of building by $5 million, according to their attorney, David DiJulio.

DiJulio said the Cohans are willing to pass on a lump-sum settlement if the city can make it easier for them to finally build some version of the many visions they have had for the property.

“The challenge to the mediators is to find a way to reduce the Cohans’ costs to make up for the increased interest so that the city doesn’t have to write a large check,” DiJulio said.

In a further twist to a complicated situation, the city and the Cohans also have to negotiate with a third party, the Ventura County Flood Control District. The district wants to build a flood-control basin on the Cohans’ property, taking 4 1/2 acres of their land.

Albert Cohan said the district wants the developer to pay the multimillion-dollar cost of constructing the basin--meant to protect downstream homes in Newbury Park--but the family isn’t willing.

After a settlement is reached between city officials--represented by Councilman Fox and Mayor Jaime Zukowski, flood-control officials will join the negotiations.

Lederer and Dragicevich are tentatively scheduled to bring an agreement before the council for approval by Labor Day.

It will doubtless be a long, hot summer.

“You don’t know what is going to happen until you get into it,” Dragicevich said. “I’m not sure what it is going to take.”