Landowner Denies Bulldozing Oaks

The oak trees are gone. All 301 of them.

The question is, who removed them?

Ventura County officials say property owner William Kaddis used bulldozers last fall to illegally plow over the trees, leaving barren nearly half of his 43-acre hillside property outside Ojai.

As a result, Kaddis faces up to $3 million in fines in what officials believe is the largest illegal tree-removal case in county history.

But Kaddis, an Egyptian real estate broker, has denied that he uprooted the trees and contends that he is the victim of a racial hate crime. He has sued the county for $10 million, accusing inspectors of trespassing on his property during a visit in the fall.

On Tuesday, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors rejected Kaddis’ appeal of an earlier Planning Commission ruling. Now the two sides appear headed for court.

Supervisor Steve Bennett, whose district includes Kaddis’ property, said he was swayed by “overwhelming evidence” presented by county planners.

“This was a real rape of the land,” Bennett said Wednesday. “You just can’t restore it in the foreseeable future.”

Kaddis and his attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But Kaddis has suggested several theories on how the trees were uprooted.

Testifying before the Planning Commission in April, Kaddis said that owners of nearby properties were upset that he had purchased the $615,000 property near Lake Casitas. One of them disgustedly asked him, “Where the hell are you from?” he said, and an anonymous letter threatened that he would be harmed and his groves burned.

“I am not a lawbreaker!” Kaddis told the commissioners. “I’m a Christian! All of a sudden, when I come to Ventura County, I am suddenly a lawbreaker!”

But county officials have pointed out that a property owner is ultimately responsible for land-use violations, even if the individual did not know that the violations had occurred.

County workers first learned of the tree removal from Kaddis’ neighbors. Inspectors visited the property Oct. 11 and found nearly 20 acres cleared of trees and brush, according to a Planning Commission report.

They also found a worker, who identified himself as Kaddis’ employee, using a bulldozer to push previously downed trees and brush into piles. Kaddis did not have permits to uproot the trees or to remove the brush.

“It’s fairly easy to see he was violating the ordinance,” said Scott Ellison, a senior planner with the county. “We could certainly tell a violation had occurred, and was occurring before our eyes.”

Kaddis has acknowledged that he rented two bulldozers during September and October, but has said they were used to clear brush, not to knock down trees. Throughout the appeal process, Kaddis has offered several explanations for the trees’ removal from his property.

One of Kaddis’ theories is that the trees were uprooted before he acquired the property in July 2001. Another is that vandals may have cut down the trees in a possible hate crime, according to county documents.

Kaddis filed a complaint in January with the Sheriff’s Department, stating that he had received racist hate mail, was threatened verbally by neighbors and that his property had been vandalized.

Kaddis turned over to authorities an envelope left on his property that contained “a typed letter threatening him and expressed contention with proposed use of the site (i.e. church, campsite for children or sanctuary for battered women),” according to a Planning Commission report. “The letter appears to take credit for the dumping of oak tree brush on the site and for the on-site vandalism.”

The Sheriff’s Department investigated Kaddis’ report, but found “no evidence of a credible threat,” according to county documents.

Meanwhile, a California Department of Fish and Game biologist who visited the property Aug. 29 wrote that the “oak woodlands [were] pristine and undisturbed,” and that no tree removal had occurred prior to that date.

A certified arborist later determined that the trees had been removed after Kaddis had bought the property.

With the trees removed, county planning officials are concerned about the potential for erosion, as well as possible stream sediment buildup.

“It would take hundreds of years to replace an oak tree forest,” Bennett said.

In deciding the penalty for the tree removal, county officials have several options. They could fine Kaddis as much as $1 million. Or, they could order him to purchase 20 acres of oak forest in the county and donate the land to a conservancy or the state as open space.

A third option would require Kaddis to plant new trees to replace the mature oaks that were uprooted. Because trees can’t always be replaced with a one-to-one ratio, it may take 50 small trees to replace one oak, Ellison said.

This last option would be the costliest. Ellison estimates the tab could run in excess of $3 million to pay for hundreds of oaks and the acreage on which to plant them.

Oak trees are only part of Kaddis’ troubles.

In the last year, he has been investigated by the Ventura County Public Works Agency, the county Resource Conservation District and the California Department of Fish and Game on suspicion of various violations.

Until the tree issue is resolved, Kaddis also will not be allowed a permit for the 35 dogs he is currently housing illegally in a kennel on his property, Ellison said.

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Times staff writer Steve Chawkins contributed to this report.