Council Angered by Open Space Acquisition

Disappointment and frustration spread across the faces of several Community Council members at last Thursday’s meeting when discussion turned to Santa Monica Open Space Preservation Assessment District No. 2. Some council members were distraught over the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority’s $255,000 purchase of three contiguous hillside lots between several homes on Revello in Castellammare. They argued that this plot of land (lots 70, 72 and 74) has apparent slide issues and no public benefit. ‘There is no kind way to describe our reaction to the acquisition that has been made,’ Chairman Norman Kulla said. ‘One word is ‘outraged.” The property was purchased last June, according to Paul Edelman, chief of natural resources and planning of the MRCA, a local agency of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. It is the one acquisition made to date in Pacific Palisades, or Area H, under the Open Space Preservation Measure, funded by tax money from property owners in the Santa Monica Mountains (areas north of Sunset, west of the 405 Freeway to the Calabasas border). ‘I think we did a good job of picking the cr’me de la cr’me of what was available,’ Edelman told the Palisadian-Post Tuesday. He was not present at Thursday’s meeting. ‘It’s part of that whole Castellammare area that appeared to be more stable and it has high-quality habitat.’ Community Council members remained flabbergasted, pointing at the steep, sloping land across from two homes in the 17000 block of Revello as one major cause for concern. ‘How can you sell a landslide?’ asked Kurt Toppel, council vice-chairman. In response to the council’s concern about an apparent slide, Edelman said, ‘there are houses directly downslope and directly upslope that don’t appear to be going anywhere.’ He and his staff as well as one of their 10 MAI-approved appraisers inspected the land before purchase. Asked why they did not hire a geologist to look at the area, he said, ‘We don’t normally do that because we’re not putting any buildings on it.’ The council also feels that the considerations and criteria for the purchase are unclear and seem only to benefit a small group of people. ‘They have such horrible reasons for buying a piece of property,’ council member Norma Spak said at the meeting. She serves on the Citizens’ Oversight Committee for Open Space Preservation Assessment District No. 2, one of two members appointed by City Councilmember Cindy Miscikowski. According to Edelman, the MRCA looks for properties that provide aesthetic value, habitat value and green space. ‘We’re trying to buy as many as we can [that are] well-distributed throughout the community,’ he said. ‘Then it boils down to what we can afford, what’s a good deal and what’s realistic.’ Edelman does not understand why the Community Council is so upset about the acquisition. ‘I think a lot of people in the community have not been able to put themselves in our staff’s shoes,’ he said. ‘They don’t understand [the MRCA’s task of] buying in subareas of the community, and the value of having a pocket of open space.’ He added that the MRCA is not looking to purchase any more property in the Castellammare area because ‘the Community Council is so angry and adamant about it.’ However, even the Council’s appointed subcommittee, which has made attempts to discuss and understand the MRCA’s choice of purchase with Edelman, is not satisfied with his answers. ‘We complained there could be no public use,’ Kulla wrote in a letter to council members. ‘Paul agreed that we were correct about who would benefit from purchase [neighbors living adjacent to and across from these lots] and that there could be no public use. He said that was part of the mandate of the Santa Monica Open Space Preservation District No. 2., i.e., to acquire such parcels under such conditions.’ Part of the confusion may lie in the original information about this assessment sent to property owners in the summer of 2002. Flyers and brochures with juxtaposed photographs of raging fires and Caterpillars rolling over a flat expanse of land statement: ‘On June 29th, we can save our remaining open space from development and prevent wild fires.’ The mailed ballot asked if property owners wanted to assess themselves $40 per year over 30 years to fund the acquisition and preservation of nearby open space and parkland, and to annually clear brush to reduce fire hazards in their acquisition area. The measure was approved by 68.1 percent in District Two. While it’s too late to reverse the vote or even the acquisition already made by the MRCA, the Community Council plans to follow closely the agency’s proposed acquisitions. ‘I do have an opinion as to how our tax money should be spent: it should benefit the general public,’ Kulla wrote to council members. ‘Accordingly, I would like to see acquisitions that enhance existing public parkland or provide new public parkland, perhaps a pocket park if something larger isn’t affordable. I do not support purchasing lots merely to increase surrounding property values.’ The proposed acquisition sites in Area H that Kulla and other subcommittee members Ted Mackie and Gil Dembo are discussing with Edelman include properties adjacent to Topanga State Park and/or Trailer Canyon in the Highlands; properties adjacent to or nearby existing Los Liones Park; properties adjacent to Marquez Elementary School now owned by DWP (as a possible neighborhood pocket park); and properties in Rivas Canyon adjoining Will Rogers State Park. ‘There may be problems with these lots, and others may be more worthy, but further investigation is required in all events because we have inadequate information,’ Kulla said. The subcommittee toured the proposed sites with Edelman on April 7, expressed their concerns and requested more information on some of the target sites. ‘We were specific in asking him not to commit to a piece of property until the Community Council has a chance to look at it,’ Dembo said. The MRCA has to spend the remaining money’$2.2 to $2.3 million’by April 2006, according to Edelman.