Jury decides Kanan lawsuit

A jury told the city of Agoura Hills to pay $637,000 to a pair of property owners as the result of a lawsuit against the city over construction of the Kanan Road/101 Freeway interchange.

The case brought by Kanan Properties over the value of a sliver of land needed to build the interchange was decided earlier this month.

The settlement cost the city twice as much as it had anticipated, but was less than what the plaintiffs requested.

The trial centered on the value of a 3,272-square-foot piece of land from the Chevron Station to the north side of the International House of Pancakes. The city seized the land under power of eminent domain because the property was needed for the new interchange offramp, Agoura Hills Manager Greg Ramirez said. Eminent domain allows governments to acquire private property when it's needed for a public project. The property owner must be fairly compensated.

"Our intention from day one was not to go to court with anybody," Ramirez said. "We wanted to settle."

But negotiations broke down between the city and the property owners and a lawsuit was filed.

The plaintiffs included Kanan Properties, a landlord whose holding includes the International House of Pancakes, Jack In The Box and several smaller businesses, and the Agoura Point Center, a retail complex that includes Islands restaurant and Chuy's Mesquite Broiler. In all, there were 31 defendants identified in the suit. In addition to the city, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District and Pacific Bell were also named.

The jury verdict awarded $637,000 to Kanan, which had initially requested $1.6 million. The city's final offer of $310,000 to Kanan and $10,000 to Agoura Point was rejected and the lawsuit was filed.

While the jury sided with Kanan Properties, agreeing that the land was worth more than twice the amount the city had offered, the Agoura Point businesses were only awarded $1,000.

"The jury felt they didn't have a claim," Ramirez said. "We never thought Agoura Point would be adversely affected."

Representatives for Kanan Properties declined to comment for this article, as did individual business owners.

Ramirez said that while all of the parties agreed there was a specific cost per square foot of property, negotiations broke down when talks turned to severance damages. Kanan Properties insisted it would suffer a loss of income because of the driveway closure on the north side of the property. The city's experts said that only two parking spaces would be affected, but Kanan's experts- and the jury-believed that the businesses suffered a greater loss.

David Lippman, the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District's director of facilities and operations, said the district was named in the suit because of a dispute about meter easements.

The Kanan interchange improvements required that the meters be relocated.