Accord May End Parkland Fight at Soka Campus

A state park agency appears to be on the brink of settling a bitter three-year legal fight to condemn Soka University’s scenic campus here after two local lawmakers Wednesday unveiled a proposal that would limit the school’s size and create hundreds of acres of public open space.

The proposal by Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) is designed to amicably end one of the nastiest and costliest land-use battles over the Santa Monica Mountains in recent history.

Since 1992, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Japanese-language school have waged war over 245 of Soka’s 660 acres whose sweeping views and oak-dotted meadows made them a coveted parkland centerpiece.

Wednesday’s proposal calls for the conservancy to drop its efforts to seize the land through eminent domain and support expansion of the campus to a 650-student liberal arts college. In return, Soka would set aside 375 of its 660 acres as public open space and agree to never build on another 35 acres.

The executive boards of the conservancy and its sister agency, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, are scheduled to meet March 25 to consider the proposal, which was drafted in private meetings over the last five months.

Both boards will almost certainly approve the proposal, sources said, because the conservancy has no money to continue a legal fight that already has cost more than $1 million in public funds.

“And because it’s a great deal,” said one conservancy board member who asked not to be identified. Because the issue involves pending litigation, many board members were skittish about discussing the proposal on the record.

The conservancy’s executive director, Joseph T. Edmiston, predicted “very substantial support for this on the conservancy board.”

“If this had been on the table in December 1992,” Edmiston said, “nobody in their right mind would have . . . filed” the condemnation action.

And conservancy Chairwoman Liz Cheadle said she “wouldn’t bring it before the board if I thought it would fail.” She said the size of the proposed Soka student body is smaller by a third than her high school graduating class.

Soka spokesman Jeff Ourvan declined to comment Wednesday, saying too many potential settlements have been scotched at the last minute in recent years. “We’re not going to take a position one way or the other,” he said.

Under the proposed settlement, Soka would expand in phases over several years. All buildings would be limited to 35 feet high--or three to four stories--and would be built in meadows at the back of the property to minimize the impact on views. Overall construction would be limited to about 440,000 square feet.

The proposal is similar in many respects to one suggested last October, which included more buildings and less open space. That proposal was rejected by Yaroslavsky and Beilenson as favoring the university at the public’s expense. Soon after, the two began negotiating directly with Soka on the conservancy’s behalf.

Beilenson said the current proposal allows the conservancy to remain solvent and secures guarantees from Soka that it will not seek to expand beyond its 650-student cap for at least 25 years. It also would protect wildlife corridors and panoramic views from Mulholland Highway and Las Virgenes Road.

“I’m sorry we can’t have the whole property, but we can’t,” he said. “What can I say? We are faced with certain realities.”

Those realities included a conservancy without the money to complete the costly condemnation, as well as state and federal agencies too cash-strapped themselves to help out. Although the conservancy won the right to condemn Soka’s property late in 1994, it has yet to face a jury to set the price.

Appraisals by the conservancy estimated the cost of the property--which includes the historic mansion of razor magnate King Gillette--at just under $20 million. But Soka said the property was worth far more.

Over the past two years, however, it became increasingly clear that the conservancy did not have even $20 million in hand. As early as 1994, the conservancy sought to avoid a showdown in court. A proposal to share the property with Soka was blasted by nearby neighbors, environmentalists and public officials who claimed the traffic and noise of such an arrangement would be disastrous.

Since the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area was created by Congress in 1978, various parks agencies have coveted Soka’s campus as the site for a visitors center. Soka, on the other hand, has wanted to expand its campus, at one time proposing a 5,000-student college on the property, which abuts Malibu Creek State Park.

Longtime environmentalists condemned Wednesday’s proposal as undermining the idea of a national park in the Santa Monicas. “It’s a serious loss for the mountains,” said David Brown of Calabasas. “This was an ideal place to get people into the mountains. It’s a tragedy.”

Toby Keeler, president of the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation, said: “The whole thing stinks.” Keeler criticized the conservancy and the lawmakers for not involving the public in the negotiations, calling it “community betrayal at the highest levels.”

Yaroslavsky agreed that it would be a shame to lose the property as public parkland, but said that “the likelihood of the campus being purchased by a public agency was nil. For the conservancy to proceed down that road is to go down the road to oblivion and to undermine the very reason it was created.

“There is just no other way to see it,” he said, “unless you believe there is a tooth fairy out there who is going to give us the money to buy this property. If there was, I’d take the money and run.”