Neighbors Irate : Country Club’s Plan Lands It in the Rough Again

In golf jargon, the Woodland Hills Country Club has double-bogeyed.

Last month, it angered neighbors to its south with talk about closing--and selling its picturesque golf course to a developer for a housing tract.

Now it is angering neighbors to its north with talk about about staying--and expanding by constructing a new parking lot or driving range next to homes.

Such controversy is hardly par for the course for the 65-year-old club. The member-owned facility has largely managed to stay out of the news since a brush fire burned down its clubhouse in 1944.

This time, it is neighborhood opinion that has been ignited by suggestions of change for the 97-acre club.

‘Fight to Bitter End’

Leaders of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization vowed two weeks ago to “fight to the bitter end” any attempt to subdivide the golf course into luxury home sites.

Homeowner association members are now circulating a petition calling on the city to thwart the driving-range/parking-lot plan.

The latest dispute is centered on a 2-acre hillside next to the country club’s ornate Dumetz Road entry gate. The vacant parcel is adjacent to Escobedo Drive, a primary access to about 1,000 houses in a hilly area a mile south of the Ventura Freeway.

The lot has been untouched except for annual weed-mowing for fire-safety purposes and for storage of old railroad ties used to shore up hillsides around the golf course.

The controversy erupted when a nearby resident noticed country club officers walking in the vacant lot and “looking into the windows of my house” about three weeks ago.

“They said they need to make use of every amount of space because they want to put in a new clubhouse on top of the hill,” homeowner Mark Waldman said of the encounter. “They said they were thinking about cutting the hill back and putting in a parking lot or a driving range.”

Neither idea appealed to Waldman. “We could end up with a 50-foot wall if they graded it flat for a parking lot,” he said. “And we have golf balls in the back yard now--and the current driving range is a 400-yard mis-drive away.”

Club officials said Tuesday that they had not yet received the neighbors’ protest petition. But they said they have already ruled out construction of a driving range on the hillside parcel.

“We’ve since concluded that a practice range would not be practical,” said Donald Rose, one of those who talked to Waldman three weeks ago. “It’s too small for a driving range. I don’t think it would be any improvement over what we now have.”

But the club has not decided about the parking lot idea, said Rose, the club’s secretary and head of its construction committee.

Rose said a development proposal for the vacant lot will come when the country club finishes planning its proposed $4-million clubhouse. That is several months away, he said.

Whatever the club does will be subject to the approval of Los Angeles officials, Rose said.

There have been no further talks with the unnamed Calabasas developer about selling the golf course, he added. The move to construct the new clubhouse should be further evidence to neighbors that the facility’s 350 owners aren’t in the mood to sell out to a subdivider, he said.

Residents on both sides of the lush, oak-studded course said Tuesday that they intend to remain vigilant, however.

“Whatever they do is going to affect us,” said homeowner Leonard Rymsza.