Riders Seek District Land for Horses

Westside horse owners are asking the courts to ride to the rescue of a private equestrian club that operates on an undeveloped public school site near Brentwood.

The cash-strapped Los Angeles Unified School District wants to sell the unneeded, eight-acre parcel near Sunset Boulevard to residential builders for $12 million.

But the Sullivan Canyon Riders Club wants to buy it for $2 million--and contends that state law requires that the surplus land be offered for “park and recreation purposes” instead of private development.

Club members have raised $2 million and recruited a state-authorized conservation group to take over the land and manage the club’s riding rings and horse-jumping equipment.

The riders’ new partner, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, has filed a Superior Court lawsuit that horse owners hope will force the district to sell the site on Old Ranch Road near Sunset Boulevard for the lower amount.

School officials say they intend to fight the lawsuit. They say nothing in the law requires them to sell the property at an unrealistically low price.

“Our primary task these days is to build thousands of new seats to relieve the overcrowding in Los Angeles schools,” said Harold Kwalwasser, the district’s chief lawyer. “We have the opportunity here to take a piece of property and sell it at a price that will be a real assistance to us in that process.”

A Huge Goof by an Appraiser?

Appraisers hired by the school district say the site--in a canyon of multimillion-dollar houses between Brentwood and Pacific Palisades--is worth at least $12 million if it is turned into private home sites.

But horse lovers say the land is worth just $2 million because it is zoned as open space, not houses.

“It was as big a goof as an appraiser can make,” said Stanley Lamport, a Century City lawyer who represents the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.

Kwalwasser acknowledges the current zoning, but said it should be easy enough for a new owner to change the zoning to residential, which would match adjoining areas of Sullivan Canyon.

Lamport said the 160-member riding club was assisted by a new group, the Sullivan Canyon Preservation Assn., in raising the $2 million. He suggested that horse lovers could up the ante if negotiations with the school district take place.

In the past, school officials have calculated that the land could fetch up to $27 million. They have complained that Sullivan Canyon residents have repeatedly fought district efforts over the years to sell the site in an effort to keep it for themselves.

School leaders bought the property for $280,000 in 1961. Then Sullivan Canyon was relatively undeveloped, and district planners said the area would soon need an elementary school.

But the site eventually found itself surrounded by large houses whose owners either had no children or were sending them to private schools. Canyon residents soon began informally using the site for horseback riding. Eventually, they asked school officials for permission to set up rings and jumps.

Residents say they were asked in 1972 by the school district to form the riding club as a legal entity that would manage equestrian activities and handle such things as liability at the site.

School officials, however, date the club’s involvement to 1978, when they say the site was leased to the club under a three-year contract that expired in 1981. Over the years, the lease was renewed--although the current one expires next month.

This time it will not be renewed, according to school officials.

Critics of the Sullivan Canyon land lease have equated the deal to “welfare for the rich,” because the school district pays $55,000 a year in property taxes on the land but receives only $16,000 in rent from the riding club.

Officials say the value of the land has doubled over the past half-dozen years. Last year one Westside real estate expert described the land as “absolutely magnificent, one of the prime parcels in California.”

Riding club members bristle over the “welfare” characterization. They explain that “private property” signs placed around the site were posted at the insistence of school officials. Over the years, they say, poor schoolchildren have been regularly invited to the property to experience the thrill of horseback riding.

“No one’s sent away. People come up here all the time,” said Mary Sweeney, a nine-year canyon resident. “The ‘private property’ signs are adios if the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority takes over.”

Sweeney criticized the school district for trying to boost the price of the property. “Creating strategic investment opportunities is not in the spirit of the law,” she said.

Amy Lethbridge, deputy executive officer of the authority, said her group is determined to keep the canyon site as open space.

“This is public land. It should remain parkland, not be developed by builders who want to put a bunch of luxury houses here,” Lethbridge said.

No Obligation to Sell Low

Kwalwasser acknowledges that the district is required to initially offer surplus land for recreational or park use, but says officials are not obligated to sell it for such use if the price is too low.

“We have to offer it, but that doesn’t resolve the price. If a recreation group wants to buy it at the highest and best value, we’re happy to sell it to them,” he said.

A price below what the open market can fetch is unacceptable, he said.

“We think our highest obligation is to our kids--to put money from that site toward construction of a new school,” he said.