Conservancy’s Soka University Suit Dismissed

A lawsuit attempting to prevent Soka University from expanding was dismissed Friday by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge because the two sides had reached a settlement.

The eminent domain action was filed in 1992 by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a state agency, to minimize the environmental impact of the university’s efforts to increase its population from about 300 students to 3,400.

The conservation authority had intended to seize 254 of the university’s 588 acres and establish a local headquarters for the National Parks Service on the land.

The settlement was reached in March. It calls for the authority to instead get 383 acres in a part of the campus where there are no structures, unlike the originally requested land, said Jeff Ourvan, a spokesman for the university.

As part of the agreement, the authority also cannot set up a park headquarters on the land, he said.

Ourvan said the university is free to pursue a development project that would entail building new facilities to service its student population, which will be capped at 650.

“That’s significantly less than we had intended,” he said.

Starting from the date when its growth plan is approved, the university cannot apply for new building permits or increase its student population beyond 650 for 25 years, Ourvan said.

The university also cannot sue the authority to recover its expenses resulting from the original suit, he said.

“We are quite pleased with the resolution,” said Liz Cheadle, chairwoman of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a conservation group that has joint powers with the conservation authority. “We got more land than we expected.”

Soka University is a private school that caters to international students with courses in foreign languages, English language courses for Japanese students and is home to the Pacific Basin Research Center.