Conservancy Should Sell Streisand Land : Plans to rent residences there for special events will be costly to taxpayers, when property could instead bring in money to help buy long-sought Soka parcel.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is engaged in two seemingly unrelated policy errors of major proportions:

* It seems determined to make the purchase of land at Soka University that it has sought for years as hard as possible. After dragging its feet through a condemnation process that it started, the agency is now threatening to sell parkland to raise what it claims could be a huge price set by a court.

* At the same time, it is making destructive plans to use the Malibu estate in Ramirez Canyon donated two years ago by Barbra Streisand. In addition to having its Center for Conservation Studies, the agency wants permission to rent three of the five residences there for corporate meetings and special events purely to make money.

Instead of messing up Ramirez Canyon and endangering its victory over Soka, the conservancy should correct its errors by selling the Streisand property. Then it would have enough money for the Soka land. It can begin the process at the next board meeting at 6:30 p.m. March 20 at Santa Clarita City Hall.

The Ramirez Canyon controversy is just beginning. Last week, the city of Malibu decided to investigate whether the conservancy violated laws on the uses on residential lands. Its position is that the conservancy is running a business.

The conservancy’s plan for the Streisand land would probably overburden the narrow private road that runs up the canyon to the estate, requiring a widening of the road to accommodate increased traffic and allow a safe evacuation in case of fire or flood.

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That is only one negative aspect of the Streisand deal, which has been full of problems since the announcement of the gift in 1993.

Someone should have looked this gift horse in the mouth. The public is bearing all the costs, a projected total of nearly $250,000 this year: almost $90,000 to maintain the property and $143,000 to run the Streisand Center itself, a separate entity from the land and buildings.

These totals include $15,000 a year for electricity we’ll never see, $1,000 a month to water an exotic tropical garden and fill an Art Deco swimming pool for projected executive conventioneers and $15,000 for building maintenance beyond the caretaker and groundskeeper salaries of $31,000. What condition are those buildings in, anyway? Also included is $96,000 spent by the conservancy, partly on consultants, to dream up this convention center from hell.

Those involved insist the money-making is necessary to make the Streisand Center self-supporting. In view of the state’s persistent reluctance to continue funding the conservancy, the real goal is probably to bring in enough money to make the conservancy self-supporting.

Can the site in its present state support such use? For example, the existing septic system is inadequate for large groups. The center will need to bring in Andy Gumps. Can you picture conventioneers, maybe oil company executives and their wives, lined up at the Andy Gumps in the garden? Will we end up footing the bill for an expensive sewer system from that remote site? How much additional development at what expense will the site require to achieve the desired income? Will the income ever be enough? Will this neighborhood be sacrificed piece by piece? Will yours be next? Damn the environment! Full speed ahead!

Let us turn to Soka. A court has ruled that the conservancy can condemn the property. Now the court must set a fair price.

But instead of following through with the necessary condemnation of the long-sought property, the King Gillette Ranch, the conservancy is erecting every barrier it can. It is threatening to sell off natural parklands as far away as Santa Clarita to raise the money to purchase Soka.

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Had the conservancy planned properly, it would have socked the money away. Natural parkland should be the last thing sold, not the first.

I believe conservancy officials hope this threat will lead the public to reject the Soka condemnation purchase. Politically this would clear the way for negotiations between Soka and the conservancy at a lower price than the court would grant. The conservancy would save dollars; Soka would save face.

The problem is that a negotiated settlement no doubt would leave both of them on the property--the aborted agreement of late last year did so, and Soka thinks staying there is critical. If one is bad, two is worse, and undoubtedly Soka would eventually consume the remaining open space.

There is no deed restriction preventing the sale of the Sreisand property. Nor would the money immediately go to the state general fund, as conservancy officials claim. I am reliably informed that it could legally spend the money if it did so promptly.

Soka is accessible and close to its natural state. Streisand is neither. There is no public support for holding on to Ramirez Canyon and widespread support for buying Soka. Ramirez Canyon is not public parkland. A Center for Conservancy Studies can be put in some of the 120,000 square feet available in the existing King Gillette Ranch buildings on the Soka site. The public would then have access to the center’s library, meetings and seminars. Public benefit would thus arise from the expenditure of public money.