Burton Strikes at Soka University Expansion Plans

In a last-minute blow to Soka University’s expansion plans, newly elected state Senate President John Burton on Thursday urged the California Coastal Commission to oppose the project, located in the last pristine valley in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Burton faxed his opposition to the commission on the eve of the commission’s vote on building permits for the plans to expand the campus from 350 to 800 students, prompting surprised Soka officials to delay a final decision until April.

Neither side Thursday seemed to think the newly elected Senate leader’s sudden interest in the project will kill the planned expansion, but opponents welcomed the chance to mount a final charge in their eight-year battle over the verdant, oak-studded valley in the heart of the Santa Monicas.

“It gives us hope and opportunity,” said Mark Massara, a Sierra Club official.

Burton’s stance is just the latest twist in the tortuous battle over the 588-acre site, the last large chunk of land left in the decades-old battle to preserve the Santa Monica Mountains.

Once likened to “the land-use equivalent of thermonuclear war,” the long-running fight has split one-time friends, divided state park officials and fostered lingering suspicion between neighbors and the university. The various players have spent millions on lawyers and lobbyists to battle across local, state and federal levels.

Gov. Pete Wilson’s appointees on the commission criticized Burton’s letter as heavy-handed meddling by the San Francisco Democrat who won the Senate presidency a month ago.

“It’s a travesty,” said Craig Denisoff, an assistant deputy secretary in the state Resources Agency. “This really taints the process.”

But Burton’s spokesman, noting that Wilson often applies his own pressure to the commission, said Burton acted at the request of Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), a longtime foe of the project who urged Burton to get involved in his new statewide role as Senate president.

The letter was merely a reflection of Burton’s longtime interest in the environment, said spokesman Sandy Harrison.

Family ties also played a role. Burton’s late brother, former Rep. Phil Burton, helped spearhead the federal legislation that created the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 1978.

While the letter may be the first time Burton has directly expressed his opinions to a board it’s not meant to signal any intent to closely control political appointees, Harrison said.

“When you have a scenic area like this, his inclination is to come down on public, open space,” Harrison said. “He wasn’t dictating policy. He was just expressing his concerns.”

Kuehl also defended Burton’s action, saying that she believed he needed to speak out on the subject because of its importance to Southern California.

“One of the two most important legislators in the state has the responsibility to weigh in on important questions like this,” Kuehl said. “He’s not holding a hammer over anybody. John Burton never puts pressure on his appointees.”

Burton’s 11th-hour objections were to the locations of parking lots, roads and dormitories on the campus, which received commission approval last month for a specialized land-use plan.

The commission was scheduled to vote today on a permit to allow construction on the site. That vote is now scheduled for the commission’s next meeting in April in Long Beach.

Opponents say the two large dormitories, which would house about half the students living on campus, would be eyesores that would destroy views in the area next to state and national parklands. “It will destroy the heart of the Santa Monica Mountains,” said Mary Weisbrock, president of Save Our Space, which is dedicated to preserving open space in the area.

In the past, Soka officials have said they have no room to change the site of the two planned buildings. Thursday, they said they would head back to the drawing board and see what “tweaking,” if any, could be done.

“With all the constraints on this site, it’s not that simple,” said Jeff Ourvan, a spokesman for the school, which offers language and Pacific Rim studies courses. The school is largely supported by Soka Gakkai, a controversial Japan-based Buddhist sect.

Soka officials, who bused about 50 supporters to Monterey from Los Angeles for the meeting, were caught off guard by the letter. Nonetheless, they predicted they would resolve the objections from Burton, who appoints four of the commission’s 12 members.

“We’ve been at this eight years. We can wait 30 days,” Ourvan said.

As proposed, the university would expand the campus from the current 81,000 square feet of building space to 440,000 square feet. Although officials haven’t said exactly how they plan to use the expanded school, they have said they will enroll up to 800 students in either high school or university-level classes.

The current project is a far cry from the original 5,000-student university envisioned when the plan was first announced in 1990. That proposal immediately sparked an outcry since park officials had wanted to use the area, site of the historic King Gillette mansion, as a visitor center for the recreation area. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, charged with preserving open space in the area, filed a suit to condemn the land, but settled out of court in a 1996 agreement brokered by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, former Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson and Joseph Edmiston, head of the conservancy.

In return for dropping the lawsuit and supporting the project, conservancy officials received 382 acres of parkland.