L.A. Unified Loses Lawsuit Over Land

A Los Angeles jury decided Tuesday that the Los Angeles Unified School District must pay the owner of a piece of land south of downtown nearly $22 million -- about $10 million more than the district offered -- to build a middle school sports field there.

The district used eminent domain to obtain a 4.6-acre parking lot that it plans to turn into the athletic field for Central L.A. Area New Middle School No. 4. Construction has yet to begin on the 1,500-student campus, which is scheduled to open in late 2005 just south of the intersection of Jefferson Boulevard and Grand Avenue.

The lot’s owner also owns a 350,000-square-foot industrial building next door and alleged that the value of that building would be drastically reduced after the parking lot is replaced by the sports field, said the owner’s attorney, George Soneff.

The owner, 3434 South Grand Avenue LLC, contended that the parking lot was worth $8.616 million and that it should be compensated an additional $13.364 million for the decline in the building’s worth.

After a two-week trial and 2 1/2 hours of deliberations, the Superior Court jury sided with the property owners and awarded them $21.98 million.

Soneff said the school district must reconsider how it values land. “They are building a lot of schools, taking a lot of property in a lot of different places, and they need to do it right,” he said.

Kevin Reed, acting general counsel for L.A. Unified, said the district would appeal.

District appraisers, Reed said, determined that the property owners should receive $12.5 million after examining the neighborhood and similar pieces of land. That cost included the price of the parking lot as well as the adjacent building’s decrease in value, he said.

The district has had to use its eminent domain powers about 300 times in the last few years since it embarked on an ambitious program to build 85 schools. In most of those instances, the district and landowners reached agreements, Reed said. About six went to trial, he said, and two, including Tuesday’s case, ended with decisions giving the owners more than what the district estimated.

Voters in 2002 approved about $3.35 billion in bond money for the construction of schools, and the district will ask for another $3.8 billion next March. The state matches some funds through a state bond.

Reed said Tuesday that the district would not halt its building plans, no matter what happens on appeal.