Soka Ruling Leaves More Uncertainty

After this week’s unanimous ruling by a state appellate court rejecting the environmental impact report and the county’s approval for expansion of Soka University in Calabasas, the future of the college’s 588.5 acres is uncertain.

For more than a decade, Soka’s plans to expand the campus in the Santa Monica Mountains have been at the heart of a battle involving university officials, politicians, homeowners and environmentalists.

The question now is whether the oak-filled rugged parcel within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area that was once the historic King Gillette ranch will remain as it is, said Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

The university, at Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland Drive, could continue as a small language school, file for a rehearing, submit new plans for expansion, seek a review before the California Supreme Court or--as Edmiston fears--sell the land to a developer.

For Los Angeles County, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and Soka University, Tuesday’s ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal jeopardizes a hard-fought settlement that would have preserved nearly 400 acres of Soka land as open space.

In that agreement, brokered by the three parties in 1996 to settle lawsuits over the university’s expansion project, Soka agreed to scale back its original building plans from 1.7 million to 440,000 square feet and to accommodate no more than 650 students instead of 3,400.

“I’m disappointed at [the court] decision. We worked very hard on this plan, and I know not everyone agreed with it,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. “We got almost 400 acres of parkland, and that will be undone because that is part of the deal.”

Arnold Kawasaki, Soka vice president of administration, said the university, which receives funding from the Japan-based Buddhist sect Soka Gakkai, does not plan to sell.

“That’s why we went into a settlement, to find the most amicable, beneficial way to work with the community to dedicate open space forever and have a strict cap on our expansion,” Kawasaki said.

Lawyers for the university were still reviewing the appellate decision, but Kawasaki said the university’s final decision on the matter rests with a nine-member board of trustees, two of whom live in Japan, the others in the United States.

William Ross, an attorney for Soka University, said his clients will probably file a petition for a rehearing in appellate court, which must be done within two weeks.

Soka is opening a second, $220-million campus next month in Aliso Viejo, but Kawasaki said the missions of the two branches are different and both sites are needed.

The 103-acre Orange County campus is a sweeping hilltop complex designed as a residential liberal arts college for as many as 1,200 students.

Soka originally had planned a similar liberal arts campus in Calabasas, but it has used the facility for an English language school and a master’s program for teacher training, programs it hopes to expand, Kawasaki said.

Although Tuesday’s ruling may ultimately dissolve the open space agreement, Sierra Club spokesman Dave Brown said the plaintiffs took that risk to try to protect the entire 588.5-acre parcel.

“We may regret this,” Brown said. “But I hope we made our point that this single property is the last piece left in the mountains that includes large amounts of flat, undeveloped land with this beautiful scenic mountain backdrop.”

The Sierra Club, Save Open Space Santa Monica Mountains and the Monte Nido Valley Property Owners Assn. filed the lawsuit four years ago against Los Angeles County, challenging Soka’s final environmental impact report. The suit alleged that the report did not adequately analyze the effect of zoning and land-use changes or the effect on steelhead trout, among other issues.

An earlier suit, filed in 1992 by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, sought the entire property through eminent domain.

Different Views of Possible Outcomes

John Low, vice president of the Monte Nido Valley group, said he was pleased with the appellate court ruling and hoped that the Soka complex would eventually be converted into new headquarters for the National Park Service, which oversees the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area.

For that to occur, said Yaroslavsky, who helped broker the Soka open-space settlement, not only would the university have to decide to sell its land, but funds to purchase it would have to be raised.

The cost would exceed the $15 million to $20 million price tag of several years ago.