A Flood of Changes : The Sepulveda Basin Is About to Undergo Unprecedented Development as It Continues Its Historic Role as Refuge for Wildlife and People--and Lightning Rod for Self-Appointed Guardians

It has been called an island in a sea of urban development. The Sepulveda Basin’s natural beauty attracts the endangered peregrine falcon as well as harried visitors who come to read a book, spy a fox at sunrise or watch a cottontail bound across a field.

But the basin’s look is about to change dramatically.

Plans are under way by the city of Los Angeles and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to turn the San Fernando Valley’s 2,097-acre green crown jewel into an even bigger draw for the wildlife and the 2 million or more people who visit annually.

The project represents the largest recreation plan ever undertaken at one time in the history of the basin. In fact, it is the largest current recreation development in the Army Corps of Engineers’ district office, which encompasses 235,000 square miles in four Western states.

A 160-acre park, called Bull Creek, will be developed where cornfields once stood. Within the park, a lake will be dug with a fishing cove and plenty of room for rowboats. The park’s namesake, Bull Creek, now a neglected haven for rusty shopping carts, stands of weeds and droves of waterfowl, will be spruced up. Footpaths will traverse a creek that is now largely hidden from view.

In the basin’s wildlife area, a dusty and seasonally marshy triangle of sagebrush, grasses and willows located just west of the San Diego Freeway, 7,500 trees and shrubs will be planted. Ecologists predict a new pond and a denser canopy of plants will be a big hit with the approximately 200 species of birds found in the basin.

Work on the $25-million project is expected to begin in August and should be completed by early 1989, planners say.

Still other basin projects, some tentative, are in the works.

Los Angeles will erect a community building near the tennis courts in Balboa Park. It is exploring the feasibility of introducing polo fields to the basin. The San Fernando Valley Fair board members desperately want to move their headquarters and the fairgrounds there. Arts Park, a planned cultural complex, has a spot reserved in Bull Creek Park if its supporters can amass the millions of dollars to build it.

And the Los Angeles River flood-control channel, which slices through the basin, is one of many sites being considered for a Valley trolley, which may or may not be built.

While this buzz of activity is unique in the basin’s history, the controversy that has dogged some of these current basin proposals is not. The last large preserve of green space in the Valley--bounded roughly by the San Diego and Ventura freeways, Victory Boulevard and White Oak Avenue--has historically been a lightning rod for self-appointed guardians.

“It’s probably the most sensitive reservoir area we have within . . . Los Angeles,” said Lawrence E. Hawthorne, a corps spokesman, who facetiously noted that something as innocuous as someone sneezing in the basin can set off controversy.

Most of the concerns originate with Valley homeowner groups who continue to worry about the increased noise and traffic levels the new attractions might bring. They are also constantly wary about increasing the basin’s ratio of concrete to green grass.

Too many parking lots will be needed to accommodate the flood of extra visitors the basin will soon attract, they suggest. Some also think that polo is too elitist a sport, although the city insists the fields will be shared by soccer and softball enthusiasts and picnickers as well. The city moved the location of a proposed community center when residents complained it would be too close to a row of homes.

“This constant infringement of development is criminal,” said Bennett J. Mintz, a board member of the Homeowners of Encino, who frequently walks his Doberman pinscher in the basin.

Some members of the Audubon Society and the state Department of Fish and Game have questioned the wisdom of eliminating the cornfields. The migratory Canada geese feed on the corn stubble each winter. Members of the corps have suggested sowing a corn patch or other crop exclusively for the geese.

The current complaints, however, are mild compared to the ruckus triggered when the 1984 Olympic planning committee proposed building facilities for the archery, swimming, rowing and bicycling events in the basin.

In contrast, the designers of Bull Creek Park and the wildlife projects say they have received lots of favorable response.

“We have support, but the people who don’t like it are very vocal,” said Sheila Murphy, the corps’ landscape architect in charge of developing Bull Creek Park.

Race Track Plan Fizzles

It is generally agreed that an ill-fated proposal in 1978 to move the Hollywood Park race track to the basin is what galvanized and then institutionalized the tradition of protesting any development in the basin. The coalition formed to keep the race track out was reinvigorated when the Olympic pitch was made. Many of those same people are questioning some of the projects proposed today.

In some respects, the current conflict revives this question: Should the basin be a neighborhood park or a regional one?

“I don’t think we can look at this as a neighborhood park,” said Stuart M. Solomon, president of an Encino realty company. He heads a nonprofit group of business leaders who, behind the scenes, have thrown their support behind the Bull Creek proposal and the city’s and corps’ other efforts to make the basin more appealing to more people.

“People must take a longer view,” Solomon said. “This park should be available for the entire community in the San Fernando Valley. It has the capacity to do that.”

Laments Attitudes

Joel Breitbart, assistant general manager of planning and development at the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, laments his belief that people’s attitudes toward parks in general have soured. “It’s unfortunately the nature today that people perceive parks as bad.” He said of the basin critics: “If they had their druthers the whole park would be agriculture.”

Those who endorse bringing more activities into the basin suggest that foes are suffering from the NIMBY--”not in my backyard”--complex. But Dave Lewis, president of the Coalition to Save the Sepulveda Basin, disagreed.

“I believe that park planners think in terms of telling people how to have fun. Planning things for them, “ Lewis said. “If you leave people alone, they will find ways to have fun.”

A fear of floods is the only reason the basin today is not filled with tract homes, apartments, convenience stores and tons of concrete. (See accompanying story.)

In 1936 Congress authorized the construction of the Sepulveda Dam, one of five built in the Los Angeles area to prevent flooding. Flood control remains the basin’s top priority. Recreation is second.

Real Estate on Perimeter

The corps’ real estate deals created the basin’s current ragged perimeter. Farmers sold entire homesteads, which meant the corps ended up with land outside the flood plain.

Ground was broken to begin construction on the Sepulveda Dam on a winter day in 1940 with the help of Jane Wyman and two other Hollywood actresses astride bulldozers. Forty-seven years later, development chokes the basin’s perimeter, and noise from two of the world’s busiest freeways encroaches on those seeking quiet in the shade of the basin’s trees. From many vantage points, visitors cannot forget they are in the city--the tight row of business offices lining Ventura Boulevard in Encino loom in the horizon.

Development crept closer earlier this year when ground was broken for a controversial office complex just outside the basin’s boundary. George E. Moss, a campaign contributor to several Los Angeles City Council members, did what had been impossible for two decades. Despite vigorous objections from park lovers, the council approved his rezoning request to build on a railroad right of way.

Slow Evolution

The basin has evolved slowly since the Corps of Engineers decided during the Christmas holidays in 1941 to share its land bonanza with the city. When the city signed a 50-year, $1-a-year lease with its new federal landlord, it ensured that the basin would eventually become the Valley’s equivalent to New York City’s Central Park.

Golfers were the first beneficiaries. The city built two of the three golf courses in the basin--the Balboa and Encino courses--with bond revenues.

The last big addition to the basin came several years ago when Hjelte Park was created. Playing softball in a reservoir at first had its disadvantages. A ball in flight disappeared against a flood-wall backdrop built with white rocks until park workers brushed some of the rocks with brown paint.

Through the years, picnic areas, bicycle and jogging trails, an archery range, model airplane fields, a velodrome, soccer and cricket fields, tennis courts and another golf course have been added. But about 500 acres available to the city have remained untouched.

Wished for More

Park officials and commissioners have wished over the years that more could be done. They still groan about the rejection of free Olympic facilities since the city’s recreation master plan had called for a lake, archery range and swimming pool. A smaller archery field has since been built, and the city would still like a swimming pool, although there is no money available for it.

“We don’t have millions and millions of dollars; we have hundreds and hundreds of dollars,” Breitbart said. “In terms of development . . . $1 million doesn’t go far. The pace is slow.”

Now Congress has provided half of the windfall needed to develop the wildlife area, Bull Creek Park and its lake. Bills sponsored by Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), whose district includes the basin, netted a total of $10 million since 1985.

The city must match the federal funds. It received part of its share through Proposition 19, a $85-million bond issue to acquire and develop wildlife habitats, which voters approved in 1984. The money will be used for the wildlife project. The city also will pay for the water-distribution system.

Excited About Changes

Beilenson said he is excited about the “very welcome” changes. “It doesn’t make sense for the land to remain unused when there is a great need. There is so little recreational space for the million-plus people who live in the Valley.”

A tangential project in Bull Creek is Arts Park, the dream of the San Fernando Valley Cultural Foundation. The planned cultural complex includes artists’ workshops, galleries, an amphitheater, a museum and a 2,500-seat concert hall where, presumably, the world’s prestigious orchestras could perform during their visits to Los Angeles.

Its future, however, depends upon the success of the private organization in raising $70 to $100 million for this project and a smaller performing arts complex in Warner Center.

The chances of the San Fernando Fair moving to the basin are even more precarious. Fair officials want some land occupied by the California National Guard, which prefers to stay where it is. The corps spokesman estimates it could take several years before the military determines whether the idea would even be feasible.

The centerpiece of Bull Creek Park will be the free-form lake. Fishing and rowboating will be allowed, but swimming will not. That’s because the lake and the wildlife pond will be fed by treated water from the city’s Donald C. Tillman water-treatment plant, in the basin.

Bull Creek will meander through the park, fed by suburban runoff. When Valley residents wash their cars or hose down their sidewalks, some of the water draining into the gutters flows into Bull Creek. Its banks, now highly eroded, will be graced with willows, cottonwoods, blackberry bushes and elderberry trees.

In the lusher wildlife area, ecologists hope to attract a modest gray songbird, the least Bell’s vireo, which is on the endangered species list.

The curious will be able to watch the birds from viewing blinds, but the area already is a favorite of birders. Once a month, the Audubon Society invites the public on its bird walk. On its annual Christmas count in the basin, the Audubon watchers counted 2,462 birds and 57 species, including American coots, snowy egrets and loggerhead shrikes. On the ground, possums, raccoons, jack rabbits and cottontails abound.

“The basin is pretty special,” said Dr. Stephen Ducatman, the leader of the monthly bird walks. “It needs to be protected.”

ARTS PARK Cultural complex complete with art galleries, artists’ workshops, an amphitheater, museum, and a 2,500-seat concert hall.

BULL CREEK PARK 160-acre facility replete with a rowing and fishing lake will replace cornfields. Named for stream that runs through property.

FAIRGROUNDS San Fernando Valley Fair, which is losing its lease at CSUN, hopes to move to the basin. National Guard is current tenant.

POLO FIELDS If approved by the city, polo enthusiasts would share fields with picnickers and other sportsmen. Facilities would replace cornfields.

WILDLIFE REFUGE Ecologists hope to lure more birds and even an endangered songbird to the wildlife area by planting thousands of trees and shrubs. New 11-acre pond, with a small island, will be dug.