Councilman Will Gauge Support for Special Levy : Parkland: Braude says he won’t pursue an assessment district to buy Marquez Canyon land unless 70% of people in area back the proposal.

City Councilman Marvin Braude says he will not pursue the creation of a special tax district to acquire part of Pacific Palisades’ Marquez Canyon for parkland unless 70% of the people who would have to foot the bill support the idea.

In an interview, Braude said he does not favor placing an additional tax burden on the 3,500 households nearest the canyon without evidence of overwhelming community support.

The position adopted by Braude, the council member who represents Pacific Palisades, casts a cloud over a preservation group’s promotion of the tax district as a way to keep 5 1/2 acres of open land from being developed. Without Braude’s support, the Los Angeles City Council would be unlikely to even consider creating such a district.

“We’ve had experience with assessment districts for street lighting and other things, and the trend is they’ve all been rejected,” Braude said.

“Getting 70% support for anything is a tall order,” said Alan Tippie, a spokesman for the Marquez Canyon Preservation Assn. “But we’ve gone this far and we’re willing to keep working.”

Most observers, however, view the group’s prospects as exceedingly slim, and even Braude said he told the group he thought the chances of getting 70% support were very poor.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which owns the property, had said it would hold off selling it to the highest bidder if at least 60% of the households nearest the canyon indicated support for an assessment district.

But Braude said he didn’t think it would be fair to impose a tax burden on an unwilling 40% of residents, assuming a 60% approval rate could be obtained.

Barring a change, Braude’s declaration appears to put the Village School, as the lone bidder, in the driver’s seat to obtain the property for $1.4 million. The school is a private elementary school in Pacific Palisades with about 250 students. Village School officials say they hope to build on the site.

“The (conservancy) board’s position right now is that, as long as that bid is out there, we’re going to consider it and go forward on that basis,” said Joseph T. Edmiston, the conservancy’s executive director.

The conservancy board had given the preservation group until last week to demonstrate support for the tax district idea, but decided instead to postpone its decision on what to do about the property until next month.

The board rejected the Marquez preservation group’s $1.8-million bid for the property last month after it raised only $25,000 toward the purchase price.

The price for the land has fallen, however, since the conservancy canceled an earlier round of bids to accommodate the Marquez group. A couple who offered $1.75 million to build up to five luxury houses dropped their bid two weeks ago. The school’s latest offer is $200,000 less than what it had proposed earlier.

The conservancy obtained the land in March from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power as part of a complicated arrangement to help finance the purchase of Fryman Canyon in the hills above Studio City.

To help raise the funds, the conservancy took $2 million from a trust fund earmarked for park improvements in Temescal Gateway Park, also in Pacific Palisades.

Conservancy officials have said the Temescal improvements will have to be held in abeyance until the Marquez property is sold.

An assessment expert has told supporters of the tax district idea that the cost of buying the land and keeping it as open space would be less than $100 per household annually over 20 years for the 3,500 households nearest the canyon.

A professional polling organization, paid with funds provided by the Marquez group, was supposed to survey Marquez-area residents to determine whether they would be willing to tax themselves.

But the survey has yet to be done because it was more expensive than anticipated. Now that Braude has raised the approval threshold to 70%, it is unclear whether the group--facing increasingly long odds and already out $2,000 for the assessment expert--will be willing to spend an additional $6,000 for the survey.

Braude said he told the group he would expect the results of any survey to show at least 70% support in the community because experience has shown that people who say they are in favor of special assessments often change their minds.

By law, the City Council has the authority to establish such districts provided that a majority of affected residents do not oppose.

Braude said he prefers that the land remain entirely as open space, and, as an alternative, there should be “the most minimal use of the property, with the maximum amount of open space possible.”