Coastal Commission Consideration of Soka

The California Coastal Commission will decide during the first week of February whether to approve a modest expansion of Soka University’s Calabasas campus. The debate over the university’s future has been ongoing since 1990, and the commission’s approval is the last step in a regulatory process that has largely incorporated the concerns of local residents. The current proposal is supported by a range of groups that include the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., Calabasas Chamber of Commerce, members of the neighboring Stokes Canyon Homeowners Assn. and hundreds of local residents.

The proposed campus plan protects the environment. The public gains more than 400 acres of open space at no cost to the taxpayer. The university is restricted to 650 full-time students, or a student population proportional to practically one student per acre. Trails will be improved and constructed in the open-space area. And not one of the more than 4,000 oak trees on campus will be removed or damaged.

The university has agreed to limit its plans to the proposal before the Coastal Commission for a 25-year period--something not requested or required of any other property owner in the Santa Monica Mountains. And the university further agreed to state-of-the-art environmental control and monitoring that will become the standard for every project to follow.

The Coastal Commission staff has strongly recommended approval of the university’s application. If approved, the university will be allowed to expand a small school that focuses on Pacific Rim studies--a field increasingly vital to a region for which trade with Asia is an economic cornerstone.

The university has always been open to the public, and its programs provide important educational, cultural and environmental benefits to the region. More than anything, the university wishes to get out of politics and to focus exclusively on education. Hopefully the Coastal Commission will agree and allow us to move forward with those plans.

JEFF OURVAN, Vice President

for University Relations,

Soka University of America

Calabasas