On behalf of the American Land Conservancy I would like to respond to some issues raised in your article of 9 May (“Lower Topanga tenants told to go”).
ALC is a non-profit organization whose mission is the preservation of land and water throughout the United States. ALC does not seek to own land. Rather, its strategy is to option environmentally sensitive lands that public agencies wish to acquire, arrange appraisals, surveys, toxic assessments, and the other pre-sale requirements and then transfer the land to local, state or federal agencies for conservation. We specialize in complex and difficult transactions. In ten years of operation we have closed projects around the nation totaling over 100,000 acres, including 43 projects in California totaling nearly 9,000 acres.
ALC’s Board of Directors and Counselors includes such prominent conservationists as Martin Litton, Brock Evans, Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey, Jr., and Stewart Udall among others. The late David Brower, the first Executive Director of the Sierra Club was a long time member of ALC’s Board of Counselors.
It should come as little surprise to most tenants and neighbors of the Topanga property that ALC and LAACO are attempting to transfer this magnificent land to public ownership for the benefit of future generations. LAACO has investigated this option since the mid 70’s and nearly completed a sale through ALC in 1990.
The American Land Conservancy has not ordered any tenants to leave the lower Topanga Canyon property. We have hired a well-respected consultant, Pacific Relocation Consultants, to develop a relocation plan for all tenants in accordance with state law. This plan must be approved by the state before being implemented.
A resident quoted in the article, Carol Winter, said it best “…. we are human beings and I want all the legal rights for the people, especially the elderly.” We absolutely agree. With the cooperation of the current owner, LAACO Ltd., we are developing the relocation plan in order to protect the rights of the tenants to receive relocation benefits.
Of course no plan can ameliorate all the disruption relocation will cause. However, the plan will provide financial and other assistance that tenants are ordinarily not legally entitled to receive. In fact, if the property were sold for private and not public use, the current tenants would not be eligible for relocation benefits.
A few tenants apparently believe that the sale to ALC really masks a future real estate development on a portion of the property near PCH. ALC has no such plans. When we purchase the Topanga Canyon property, we will immediately transfer the property to state ownership. ALC is a non-profit 501c(3) charitable organization; we work on the slimmest of margins and seek only to recover our costs of doing business.
Public acquisition of lower Topanga Canyon and its restoration as part of California’s natural heritage is a unique opportunity to provide truly priceless benefits to future generations.
Harriet Burgess, President