Soka May Agree to Sell 600-Acre Site to Conservancy

After rejecting several purchase offers through the years for its 600-acre site at the gateway to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Soka University of America is considering selling the pristine parcel for parkland, officials said Thursday.

As the geographic center of the mountain range with abundant natural resources, the site near Calabasas has long been considered by environmentalists the crown jewel of the Santa Monica Mountains.

For more than a decade, Soka has declined to consider offers for the site because of its plans to expand its operations on the rugged oak-filled parcel at Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland Highway.

Those plans have been at the heart of a battle involving university officials, politicians, homeowners and environmentalists that has stalled development of the property since 1991.

In recent months, however, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky has had separate conversations with Soka President Daniel Habuki and Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, to discuss the potential sale of the property. Their talks led to a private meeting of the three men Tuesday in Yaroslavsky’s office.

“A window of opportunity may now exist for a successful sale of this property,” Yaroslavsky wrote in a letter to Edmiston and Habuki after the meeting. “If we are ever to consider an amicable agreement to permanently preserve this precious property in public ownership, now is the time to act.”

Conditions are favorable, Yaroslavsky said, for both parties to negotiate a deal to sell the former King Gillette ranch, named for the razor blade magnate.

Edmiston declined to estimate the possible sale price of the property. The Conservancy could possibly tap into state open space funds made available through several bond measures approved by voters in the late 1990s, he said. Likewise, Soka officials should consider the long-term viability of its relatively small Calabasas campus, he said.

Enrollment at the Calabasas site has dropped from about 350 students to 70 students this year, school officials said. By contrast, enrollment is growing at Soka’s second site, a $220-million campus in Aliso Viejo that opened in August 2001, school officials said. About 400 students attend classes at the 103-acre hilltop complex in Orange County, designed as a residential liberal arts college for as many as 1,200 students.

Even so, Soka University officials remain coy about their plans. Wendy Wetzel Harder, a university spokeswoman, said the school would contact Yaroslavsky “to discuss all of our options, including a possible sale.”

Edmiston said he was heartened by the university’s consideration of possibly selling what he calls “the most drop-dead gorgeous property” in the Santa Monica Mountains. “This would be an incredible gift to the people of Southern California,” he said.