High Land Cost Keeps Southland Behind Bay Area in Park Acreage

Although Greater Los Angeles has twice as many people as the San Francisco Bay Area, it has less than half the acreage in state parks--which has led some conservationists in the Southland to grumble that the state parks department has a Northern California bias.

But officials of the California Department of Parks and Recreation said that during the last five years, they have spent three dollars to expand the park system in Southern California for every dollar spent in the Bay Area. This has not closed the acreage gap, they say, because of the vastly higher price of scenic land in the Santa Monica Mountains and other natural areas near Los Angeles.

“You just can’t buy as much, even if you’re using three times as much money,” Ross T. Henry, chief of the planning division for the state parks department, said in an interview last week.

According to parks department figures, 109,389 acres of state parks are within 75 miles of downtown San Francisco, compared to 40,886 acres within 75 miles of downtown Los Angeles. Three-fourths of the local acreage is in three state parks in the Santa Monicas: Topanga, Malibu Creek, and Point Mugu.

The acreage gap narrows when other state-run sites are counted, such as state beaches, recreation areas, historic parks and lands acquired by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that acquires parkland in the Santa Monicas and the foothills ringing the San Fernando Valley. Then the totals rise to about 124,000 acres for the San Francisco area and 69,000 acres for Los Angeles. On a per-capita basis, the state park system in the Bay Area is nearly four times as large.

Neither area depends entirely on the state, of course, for recreation sites and preserves. Los Angeles has the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, and San Francisco has three units of the national park system: Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Muir Woods National Monument. The U. S. Forest Service has extensive holdings in the Los Angeles area but none in the Bay Area.

Widening Gap

Some conservationists in Southern California have long complained of a tilt in state acquisition policies in favor of the northern part of the state. The issue was raised last month in a pair of letters to state Parks Director William S. Briner from David Brown of Calabasas, a member of the Santa Monica Mountains State Park Citizens Advisory Council. The council is an official group that advises the department on matters affecting state parks in the Los Angeles area, but Brown said he was speaking for himself, not the group.

Brown noted that in 1975, the Bay Area had more state parks than Los Angeles by 48,000 acres and that the gap has grown significantly.

“The department continues to buy parkland in the Bay Area at a faster rate than in the Los Angeles area,” Brown wrote, an imbalance that is being “perpetuated and widened by acquisition policies that consciously or unconsciously favor the Bay Area.”

“This is an especially serious concern when one considers the intensity of development pressure in this part of the state,” Brown added.

Brown complained specifically that top priority has not been given to state acquisition of several tracts in the Santa Monicas that adjoin existing state parks and are threatened by development. These include 425 acres on the eastern rim of Malibu Canyon, the northwest ridge line of Sequit Gorge in Leo Carrillo State Beach and about 1,000 acres on the eastern ridge of Big Sycamore Canyon adjoining Point Mugu State Park.

Priority Scale

On a priority scale of 1 to 4, the department has classified these tracts as Priority 2. Parks bond money currently is being spent only on Priority 1 tracts.

Henry, the parks department planning chief, said the agency is “directing a major amount of available funds into the Los Angeles area.” But he said the crushing cost of land in Southern California makes it hard to close the gap.

For example, Henry said, of the 1984 park bond fund of $45 million, $19.8 million has been budgeted for acquisition projects in the Los Angeles area. Only $6.6 million has been earmarked for Bay Area tracts.

But Henry said the $19.8 million will buy only 3,244 acres--at an average price of $6,100 per acre--including parcels in the Verdugo Mountains and additions to Malibu Creek and Chino Hills state parks.

5 Times as Costly

By contrast, the $6.6 million spent in the Bay Area will add 5,223 acres, for an average cost of less than $1,300 an acre. Thus Los Angeles gets less new parkland for three times the money because the land is nearly five times as expensive.

As for Brown’s complaint about the Priority 2 status of the Santa Monicas tracts, Henry said those parcels were compared to all others “on a statewide basis” and “were determined to be of lower priority than other critical state park . . . needs.”

Over the years, Henry said, the parks department has invested more than $120 million to acquire 34,000 acres of state parks and beaches in the Santa Monicas. “We’ve paid dearly” for the land, he said.

“So it’s a little difficult to understand why people indicate that there’s a failure to recognize the need and make an effort to do something about it,” he said.

Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, said Henry and Brown are both right.

“If you chase an acre in Southern California, it’s going to cost more than an acre in just about any other place,” Edmiston said.

Edmiston said parks department acquisition policies undoubtedly have reflected “a Northern California orientation,” because the mission was to save California’s redwoods and its other “crown jewels”--which are largely in Northern California.

But “the people in Southern California don’t happen to live within an hour’s drive of the redwoods,” Edmiston said.