Homeowners, Park District Settle Dispute Over Yard

Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

Well, not always.

For Gary and Debbie Moss, who live on Casa Grande Road near Simi Valley, possession is about 160/1,500.

In the conclusion to a long-running property dispute, the Mosses have agreed to settle for only 160 square feet of 1,500 square feet in their sideyard that they thought they owned.

The Rancho Simi Valley Recreation and Park District is waiting for the Mosses to sign documents that relinquish the rest of the yard, which they assumed they owned when they bought their home in 1992. The park district has agreed to sell back 160 square feet of the land for $1,200.

Jerry Gladden, park district general manager, said the Mosses have verbally agreed to let go of the land, allowing the park to reclaim it, but the five members of the board of directors continued to wait for the couple’s formal signatures at a meeting Thursday night.

When park district officials discovered that the Mosses were on district property almost five years ago, they conducted surveys to see who owned what.

Officials say the Mosses own a three-foot-wide strip on the east side of their house, and the settlement would add another two feet to that corridor, which abuts Santa Susana Park.

The Mosses plan to build an eight-foot wall to separate their house from the park. And the park plans to reclaim three oak trees, add shrubbery, build a bridge and set up a picnic table on the land, Gladden said.

Though the Mosses, who have a 13-month-old son, will lose a playhouse and a tree fort, they won’t be without any yard--they still have a pool and a raised gazebo behind their house.

The park district is selling the Mosses the skinny strip at $7.50 a square foot.

“What they’re charging me is astronomical,” Moss said. “They’re playing hardball.”

The land dispute came to light in late 1992 when Moss, a photographer, gave park officials a neighborly call to tell them he was going to rebuild an old fence next to their property.

He was told that he didn’t own either the entire triangular wedge of sideyard that overlooks the park, or a piece of frontyard where his giant satellite dish stands.

If the deal goes through, the Mosses will have to remove the dish or turn it around so the giant white bowl doesn’t hang over the park property, Gladden said.

No one knows who first encroached on the park’s land, Gladden said. The Mosses thought they owned the property and said their real estate salesman never indicated they didn’t.

Regardless of the outcome, the Mosses are planning to move.

There is a “For Sale” sign in front of their gray ranch home, which stands amid lush green trees, set apart from busy traffic on a semi-secluded dirt road close to the mountains.

“This has been emotionally charged for me and my wife,” Moss said. “All the aggravation and acrimony caused by the district’s recalcitrant position. I thought we’d be better off living somewhere else.”

Board members expressed sympathy for the Mosses, but said they had to follow the law.

It is illegal to give away public land as a gift, park district spokesman Rick Johnson explained. Public land can be sold only if it is deemed as excess. And even then, a public agency, such as a school district, would have first dibs on buying it.

Don Funk, a board member, said “Hell will freeze over before a private citizen owns a piece of public land.”

The park district decided to compromise and sell the strip to the Mosses because officials determined the sale wouldn’t affect the nature of the park, Gladden said.

“This was a business deal,” he said.

Glen Reiser, the Mosses’ attorney, had another view. He said the couple filed a lawsuit last year in federal court.

“They finally agreed to this kind of settlement because we brought our claim to a federal judge,” he said.

The judge told the Mosses they had a viable case under equal protection laws, Reiser said. But the couple never went to trial, citing the financial burden involved.

The Mosses complained they were being singled out unfairly, as several people along nearby Texas Avenue were allowed to purchase pieces of their land that encroached on the district-owned Simi Hills Golf Course.

Gladden responded that the Texas Avenue homes had little impact on golfers or the course itself, whereas the property adjacent to the Mosses’ cuts a wide swath out of Santa Susana Park.

Also, some parts of the Texas Avenue properties are irregularly shaped and of little use.

The board will discuss what to do about the Texas Avenue homeowners at a later date on an individual basis. The pieces of land that the district does decide to sell will go for $1.50 a square foot, Gladden said.