Soka University Rejects 2 Land Swap Sites : Parkland: School officials say alternatives proposed for Santa Monica Mountains property don’t ‘come close to what we’ve got.’

Soka University administrators have rejected two sites that state and federal parks agencies had suggested might be swapped for their valuable Santa Monica Mountains property, saying the sites are too small for their proposed 5,000-student college.

And they didn’t hold out much hope for the third proposed site, Camarillo State Hospital in Ventura County, because it isn’t for sale.

“They have offered us nothing that even comes close to what we’ve got,” said Bernetta Reade, a spokeswoman for the Tokyo-based school, whose administrators rejected the alternative sites late last week.

Park officials want Soka’s 580-acre property, situated along Mulholland Highway between Calabasas and Malibu, for use as the headquarters of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. They hope to entice school administrators to relocate by helping them arrange a land swap elsewhere.

Soka University began buying land near Mulholland Highway and Las Virgenes Road in 1986, eventually paying at least $43 million. About 100 students from Japan are now enrolled at the campus, studying English and living in dormitories originally built to house students of a Catholic seminary.

Most of the land is zoned for agriculture, but school officials hope to apply to the county later this month for a permit to expand.

Parks officials contend that Soka officials, in rejecting the alternative sites, are nit-picking. They say the two rejected sites--a Northrop Corp. plant in Newbury Park and a Christian conference center near Lake Arrowhead--would be suitable unless the university intends to surpass the 5,000-student limit it has set for itself.

“There are problems at the site they’re at now. These just have different problems,” said Dave Gackenbach, superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

The Northrop aircraft plant, scheduled to close this year, sits on about 100 acres in a valley next to Conejo Canyon. But Soka spokeswoman Reade said the site does not provide “enough space and there’s not going to be any more. . . . There’s development proposed all around it and no opportunity to grow.”

The Arrowhead Springs property in the San Bernardino Mountains, now a conference center for Campus Crusade for Christ, which is relocating to Florida, includes a hotel, chapel, dormitories, theater and office space on more than 1,800 acres.

But Reade said steep mountainous terrain and access problems mean fewer than 100 acres would be useful for the Soka campus. She also said school officials also were concerned about smog in that area.

Soka officials have not yet been allowed inside the buildings at the 750-acre Camarillo State Hospital, Reade said. But a spokesman for the state Developmental Services Department, which runs the state hospital along with the Department of Mental Health, laughed when asked if the property is for sale.

“We have no plans for that, and we categorically deny there are any moves to close that facility,” spokesman Greg Sandin said. Camarillo, built in 1938 to house the mentally ill and retarded, serves about 1,185 patients, Sandin said.

Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, said he hoped Soka would at least reconsider the Lake Arrowhead site, which he said would “in many ways be ideal for them.”

Edmiston also said the state still might be persuaded to give up Camarillo if the price is right. He said it might fit in with the trend toward moving mentally disabled adults into more homelike settings.

Earlier last week, Soka offered to share the Calabasas property with the National Park Service. The proposal included a gift of buildings, 71 acres of land and a maintenance endowment, which school administrators estimated to be worth $20 million. The school also offered to scale back its future student population from 5,000 to 4,000 to make room for the park headquarters. Parks officials were cool to the proposal, maintaining that even a 4,000-student university would be harmful to the mountain environment.

Politics is playing an increasingly important role in the battle over the Calabasas land.

The alternative site suggestions were kept secret at the parks agencies’ request until Friday, when Reade released them. She said she did so because when she traveled to Washington last week to discuss the land-gift offer with congressional aides, she learned that Edmiston had been there the week before.

“Everyone I met with had already been approached by Edmiston and others,” Reade said. “I guess confidentiality doesn’t mean what it used to mean.”

Edmiston said the trip was part of his effort to persuade Congress to reserve at least $14 million of the budget for acquisition of the Soka land. Edmiston said about $19 million is now available. He denied that his Washington trip breached confidentiality.