School Files Complaint Against Agency, County

Soka University upped the ante Friday in its long-running battle with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, filing a $12-million civil rights complaint against the state parks agency and Los Angeles County.

The complaint--filed as part of the ongoing condemnation lawsuit against the school in Los Angeles Superior Court--demands that county officials allow the school to enroll 1,500 students on the scenic campus or reimburse the $12 million Soka spent on improvements such as classrooms and dormitories.

Soka contends it made the improvements after assurances from county officials that the school could accommodate 1,500 students, but that those same officials now refuse to permit a student body of that size. Soka now enrolls about 300 Japanese-language students and wants to expand into a full liberal arts college.

The school also claims the conservancy and the county have obstructed its expansion plans to the degree that Soka is entitled to damages based on inverse condemnation--the principle that government actions amount to confiscation if they deprive an owner of economically viable use of property.

The complaint may be a way of speeding ongoing negotiations among Soka, the county and the conservancy. Two years ago the conservancy won the legal right to condemn Soka’s campus for parkland, but a jury still must determine how much the agency has to pay the school for the land.

In the meantime, Soka has been negotiating a settlement with the conservancy and the county, but reportedly is unhappy with the pace of the talks.

“I think they are pouring on the pressure to force a resolution,” said Liz Cheadle, vice chair of the conservancy’s governing board. “I don’t know that they’re looking for money so much as they are a result--an end to this.”

The complaint puts pressure on the parties in a number of ways. For one, it drags the county officially into a legal battle it had previously been involved in only tangentially. Second, it raises the specter of a higher ultimate purchase price to the conservancy, because land that can accommodate more intense uses is generally worth more than land that can not.

“We need the court to clarify these issues because it will impact the valuation of the property in upcoming condemnation hearings,” Soka University spokesman Jeff Ourvan said. “We think it will help bring people to the table.”

But Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who has been leading negotiations with Soka, said the complaint was a “naked attempt by the lawyers of Soka to inflate the value of their property.”

Yaroslavsky said he doubted the complaint would help Soka’s situation in either its negotiations with the conservancy or its applications before the county to expand the campus.

“If they don’t drop this nonsense, it’s a deal-breaker,” Yaroslavsky said.