1,000 Protesters March Against Land-Swap Plan

More than 1,000 people gathered in Cheeseboro Canyon Park on Saturday to protest a proposed land swap that could pave the way for construction of a huge housing development and golf course next to several acres of pristine federal parkland.

“It’s like Custer’s last stand,” said Mary Weisbrock of Save Our Space, the group that organized the protest, called the “March for Parks.” “We have to stop the Los Angeles urban sprawl. The people do not want this.”

Under the proposal, the National Park Service would get 864 acres from Potomac Investment Associates for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in exchange for 59 acres in lower Cheeseboro Canyon.

Potomac, a development firm based in Gaithersburg, Md., would use the 59 acres to build a four-lane road through the parkland to the landlocked Jordan Ranch in eastern Ventura County, where the firm wants to build 1,152 luxury houses and a tournament-sized golf course.

The land swap has been endorsed by the Park Service’s western regional director and by the last two superintendents of the national recreation area. But agency officials said recently that they will remain neutral pending completion of an environmental impact report.

Potomac has hailed the proposal as a boon to the public, saying the government could not afford to buy the ranch property. But the proposal has been harshly criticized by area residents and environmentalists.

“This really is a last-ditch stand to preserve open space in the Los Angeles megalopolis,” said entertainer Dick Van Dyke, master of ceremonies at Saturday’s event. “At some point, we have to fight. And that point is now.”

“This open space is going to be as important to the city of Los Angeles and the county of Los Angeles as Central Park is to New York,” said Margot Feuer of Save the Mountains Park Coalition.

Van Dyke, Feuer, Weisbrock and other speakers who participated in a short program at the daylong event stood atop a flatbed truck adorned with handmade signs that read “National Parklands Are Not for Sale” and “Land Swap Is a Swindle.”

Van Dyke joked that entertainer Bob Hope, who owns Jordan Ranch, has to sell the land to developers because he has fallen on hard times.

“He is down to his last $150 million,” Van Dyke said of Hope. “Can you imagine how he is forced to live! He cannot afford to sell his property to preservationists who only offer him a paltry $18 million.”

Nearby, people stood in line to write letters urging Hope not to sell the land to Potomac, using bright-colored pens on a roll of white paper. A painting by artist Anna Elisa labeled a road going through a destroyed parkland “Bob Hope Highway.” Elisa titled her work “Thanks for the Memory.”

At the entrance to the park, Save Our Space members sold “Save Cheeseboro Canyon” T-shirts and circulated petitions opposing the land swap.

Elsewhere, environmental groups including Earth First, the Wilderness Institute and the California Native Plant Society handed out literature from several booths set up in the shade of 100-year-old oak trees. Orange balloons marked the wide swath of land where the road would be located.

Tour guides led hikers through parkland they say would be destroyed if the road is built through the park. Separate times were set aside for equestrians and bicyclists to see the land.

“The road is terrible,” said environmentalist David Brown of nearby Calabasas. “It would destroy a lot of wildlife and land. It negates any advantage of the exchange.”

Elois Zeanah of the Conejo League of Homeowners said the road would destroy “an immense forest” of native Valley oaks, one of the last of its size in the area.

Bob and Frances Coutts, who live on the edge of the proposed development, said they, like many others at the event, moved to the area from Los Angeles to get away from urban sprawl.

“We have deer, rabbits and quail around our house,” Bob Coutts said. “It’s paradise. This would totally destroy our lifestyle.”

Weisbrock said Save Our Space is the first regionwide organization formed to preserve a natural habitat in the Los Angeles area.

“We have members from Panorama City, Malibu, Fillmore, Oxnard--all over,” she said.

The turnout for the event was estimated at between 1,000 and 1,200 people.

“We were just blown away by the turnout,” Feuer said later. “We expected 150 to 200.”

Also appearing at the event were Maria VanderKort, a candidate for the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, and Robert Freiman, a Camarillo lawyer who is opposing Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) for his congressional seat.

“I say ‘no way’ to 4,000 homes up here,” VanderKort told the cheering crowd.

Freiman called the land swap “the worst real estate deal since Manhattan was sold for $24.”