Land Developer Brian Sweeney angers the Malibu community with plans to develop the land adjacent to the Malibu campus.
By Jennifer Muir
Online Editor
A land speculator who recently purchased 610 acres of the majestic mountains surrounding Pepperdine plans to build six homes on the property, tearing down part of a historical avocado grove and constructing a fire access road that will connect with Pepperdine’s campus.
Brian Sweeney added the so-called Francisco property to the more than 1,400 acres of pristine Malibu land he previously owned and plans to develop. The long-time real estate investor, who is known for purchasing untouched land and selling it to environmentalists at an inflated price, has already sectioned off lots on the property and spent more than $200,000 jumping through environmental testing hoops.
“This is not an in-and-out job for me,” said Sweeney in an interview with the Graphic. “I like this land, and plan to be a long-term neighbor.”
His neighborhood, however, invades a historical area that the Pepperdine community has enjoyed using as a playground for hiking, biking and horseback riding for more than 30 years. The university has always counted the wilderness that surrounds it as one of its cherished qualities.
“There is an almost abandoned avocado farm up there that had hundreds of trees before the fire in 1996 wiped out a lot of them,” said Cindy Miller-Perrin, an associate professor of social science who lives in the adjacent faculty condos. “The previous owner would let us pick avocados from the trees.”
The Francisco property, which is located in the mountains above the faculty condominiums and spans through the canyon to the beginning of the tunnel on Malibu Canyon Road, was owned by the Adamson family before Sweeney bought it. The Adamson family, the biggest landowners in Malibu, planted the avocado grove there in the 1970s.
According to Michael Vinyere, a consultant for the family, the property is named after an old and trusted employee of the family who maintained the land.
“I am not surprised someone wants to develop that land,” said Paul Edelman, deputy director of natural resources and planning for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, who has hiked though the trail on that property for years. “It is logical — the land is spectacular. It is surrounded by beauty in a relatively remote area. The people who end up living there are going to have nature surrounding them.”
The area that was once free for public use is now covered with signs warning against trespassers, which forever kills the idea of a continuous trail running up the flanks of the Santa Monica Mountains.
“The Coastal Slope trail would run south of the Backbone trail and north of PCH,” Edelman said. “Portions of it do exist, one of which goes through property Pepperdine has dedicated for environmental use. But one of the most interesting and unique portions of it is aligned to go up the road from Malibu Canyon, right where the old road goes to the Adamson homestead. So Sweeney’s project would really affect a unique trail opportunity.”
The property also previews a rare plant, the coastal sage scrub, which has helped deem it an environmentally sensitive habitat area (ESHA). The Adamson family placed a variance on the land, which requires 30 acres on the northern end to remain undeveloped to preserve the plant, in exchange for permits to develop the proposed hotel on Malibu Canyon Road and Pacific Coast Highway. The variance was a part of the deed when Sweeney purchased the property, and although he has tried to change the environmental easement, the Malibu City Council denied that request last month.
There are also a number of testing and approval procedures that Sweeney will need to take through city, county and state planning agencies before he begins construction. If approved, however, the property deed will require a fire escape road to go through Pepperdine’s campus.
According to Carin Chapin, Pepper-dine associate director of Public Relations and News, the road would wind down from the top of the ridge above the campus and connect to the top of Baxter Drive above the faculty condominiums.
Although it is unclear how far above the condos the emergency gate will be, both Sweeney and Pepperdine representatives assure that the road will only minimally impact the Pepperdine population.
“It would be a gated, locked access road, so there would be no negative implications for people on campus,” said Gary Hanson, Pepperdine vice president and general counsel.
Although the main access area for the community will be off Malibu Canyon Road, the fire road would provide another entrance point to campus that is not guarded by Public Safety, and its construction will create a noise and dust nuisance for the residents at the top of Baxter Drive.
This nuisance, however, is not looming in Pepperdine’s near future.
“Actually getting the road built poses tremendous challenges for Sweeney,” Chapin said.
Edelman agrees.
“I think he is going to face more than he bargained for,” he said. “The property has great rock formations, high quality chaparral cover and some smaller drainages with little riparian communities (communities of animal and plant life that live on the banks of a body of water). On a broader scale, it has a critical view shed and alter shed for Malibu Canyon. It would be a travesty to the environment if he built there.”
But Sweeney is currently spending the time and money to meet environmental requirements.
“I would have already started construction if there wasn’t such a long and ridiculous approval process here,” Sweeney, who rarely grants interviews, told the Graphic.
Environmentalists and hikers, however, are still hoping that Sweeney stays true to his track record and sells the land.
Sweeney’s previous investments in environmentally sensitive property in the Big Sur area indicate he may sell. His history is purchasing land that State Parks wants to acquire, finding historical deeds that allow for residential construction and then selling the property at costs double or triple his purchase price. Although recent legislation will make it impossible to use the same developing plans on any other property, some feel he will use these tactics on the Francisco Property.
“Some properties I have acquired and it turned out that State Parks wanted them more than I wanted to build a house on them,” Sweeney said.
Edelman hopes this happens with the Francisco property as well.
“Based on his track record, I hope he sells,” Edelman said. “It has to be at a reasonable price, though. He bought the property for significantly more than what the appraisal was.”
Although Sweeney doesn’t completely rule out selling the property, he says he won’t sell it in its entirety.
“I don’t anticipate that the upper part of the property would go to the park system,” he said. “I am not selling it in its entirety, but over time if there is a demand for it, I may sell it.”
Profile: Sweeney uses experience to jump through regulatory hurdles that make California coastal development nearly impossible.
By Cassy Lamensky
Staff Writer
Regardless if he is labeled as an “environmental terrorist,” a savvy entrepreneurial businessman or an accomplished sailor, California’s conservationist community is outraged by a little-known land developer from Las Vegas. However, one distinct description of Brian Sweeney is a resourceful developer in a lucrative but sensitive market.
In the past six years, conservationists have viewed Sweeney as a nemesis or even as an “environmental terrorist,” according to state representative Sam Farr, D-Carmel, by planning to develop on one of the largest coastal properties in the state.
Now he holds in his pocket the fate of more than 1,500 acres of pristine Malibu land, including the property surrounding Pepperdine.
Outside California, few would see this 40-year-old temporary resident of Manhattan Beach as anything more than an entrepreneur. Born in Boston, Sweeney grew up in Toronto, Canada, to a “fairly prosperous background.” Gaining the initial capital from his family, he began profiting from real estate early in life by building medical centers and retail plazas in Toronto.
Never a man to settle for one opportunity or one location, Sweeney continued to try his hand in real estate development around the country. Moving back to the United States, Sweeney tried his luck in Denver. “I was buying existing apartment buildings and then occupying them with tenants,” he said in an exclusive Graphic interview. But after selling an office building for a sizeable profit, he decided to move again.
So how does the average, entrepreneurial businessmen tap into such a small and exclusive market as California coastal development?
As Sweeney simply stated, “Hard work pays off.”
Living between Las Vegas and Santa Cruz, Sweeney worked as a land speculator with the governments of California and Nevada. “It was then I had the opportunity to buy the Coast Dairies and Land Company for myself,” and he later used the property as a bargaining tool with business deals.
This purchase started his love-hate relationship with the state of California and its conservationist societies. The Coast Dairies and Land Company was prized by State Parks and conservation societies and he planned to develop where no one else could by legally maneuvering around zoning and Coastal Commission regulations.
If this task were easy, it would have been accomplished long ago. As Brian Collins, a longtime land developer from Las Vegas, said, “Getting around the BLM and regulations are nearly impossible, and we’ve been in this business a long time.” But Sweeney has become a master at sidestepping zoning and some of the toughest Coastal Commission regulations. He sold the Coast Dairies and Land for almost triple its paid amount.
Sweeney’s development strategies are to clear astonishing legal hurdles. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that landowners could develop and divide their land into subdivisions if they can prove that the right to do so once existed. This ruling qualifies any historical property records that denote, even in the slightest ways, that the land is not just one tract but a collection of many historical lots. This ruling gives him legal support to divide a tract of property into many sections, even if it was never built upon.
California’s 1929 Subdivision Act has a provision that allows historical properties with deeds prior to 1929 to adjust the boundaries. This law and court decision allows developers to sidestep many modern zoning ordinances and obtain permanent easements, moving the lots to fit the geography for the greatest potential for home sites.
Although this development technique is not new, Sweeney has gained statewide attention for the enormous size of properties, mastery of old records prior to 1929 and the amount conservation groups spend for his property.
In 1996, Sweeney partnered with David Mills, a Stanford professor, and bought the Coast Dairies and Land Company in Santa Cruz County, south of Davenport. The 7,500 acres, the second-largest privately held oceanfront land in California, sold for a little more than $20 million.
After discovering hundreds of old land deeds, they planned to divide the land into 139 parcels, exempt from California Coastal Commission and local agency review.
After conservationists discovered the amount of environmental impact of his developments, a mountain of protest and surrounding landowner opposition developed. The property in debate contained six streams rich with endangered Coho salmon and steelhead trout, as well as golden eagles, black-tailed deer and hundreds of other species.
Although he would not elaborate, Sweeney said his land exchange was “defeated by politics” and sold the Coast Dairies Ranch. In September 1997, he sold the land to the Save the Redwoods League of San Francisco for approximately $43 million, money raised in part by donations from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.
“After Santa Cruz, I moved to the Bahamas, working on a real estate deal there that did not move.” Sweeney said. Driven by other motives and goals, he returned to California and settled into a $1.2 million condominium on the Manhattan Beach pier, where he currently resides.
Sweeney’s drive for competition isn’t only over land, but water as well. He and his brother, David, competed in the 1984 Olympics with the Canadian sailing team, finishing ninth of 23 team. He and his brother, now a resident of Atlanta, sailed again for the U.S. team in the 2000 Olympic trials.
In January 2000, supported by Woodside Partners, he purchased the Bixby Ocean Ranch and Five-Mile Beach, two jewels for $9.5 million. Woodside Fund is a private venture capitalist group that supports business entrepreneurs. With their backing, Sweeney planned to develop several large mansions and golf courses of the property.
Previously owned by Allen Funt, creator of the T.V. show “Candid Camera,” the 1,226-acre ranch, 13 miles south of Carmel, is identifiable by the Bixby Bridge on Highway 1.
Sweeney, with the help from his lawyer, Catherine Philipovitch, found 11 old homestead deeds from 1877 to 1928, allowing them to divide the Bixby Ranch into nine parcels. He sold one lot to a private buyer for almost $7.3 million, and the Trust for Public Land bought the rest for $37.3 million.
The acquisition created a 14-mile stretch of protected coastline. Beginning at the Bixby Bridge and extending south through Andrew Molera State Park, it harbors a large part of the California Sea Otter Refuge now.
“Every dealing with Sweeney was completely legal,” said Mary Menees, the director of public affairs for the Trust for Public Land. “A lot of people think he’s very smart with land and value.” And many a real estate broker commends him for his development project. If Sweeney had subdivided and developed the ranch, he would have gained more than $50 million, instead of $35 million.
Last October, Gov. Gray Davis decided to sign a state measure to reword the 1929 Subdivision Act to end the provision that he and other large landowners took advantage of. Specifically, the bill limits the number of lot line adjustments that may be exempted from the Map Act to four or fewer adjoining parcels and expands the basis for local government review and approval.
Just recently, California voters passed Proposition 40, the Clean Water Act bond, allocating $300 million for purchase of wildlife habitat, $300 million for the protection of watersheds, rivers, beaches and coastal waters and $120 million in potential grants to conservancies seeking to preserve and restore the San Gabriel and lower Los Angeles rivers, the Baldwin Hills and the Santa Monica Mountains, where Sweeney now owns property.
Sweeney tentatively plans to build houses on the ruggedly beautiful terrain around Pepperdine’s campus, Corral Canyon and land behind Serra Retreat, where he wants to permanently reside. Whether the new legislation, conservation agencies and California Coastal Commission’s strict reviews and ordinances will allow him to is yet another hurdle to overcome in the future. “My next investments will go into retail,” he said. “Prices have gone up considerably (to buy) apartments and houses, but not retail and medical … I don’t specifically target land wanted by conservationists,” Sweeney said. This low-profile developer is simply looking for another lucrative venture.
April 04, 2002
