Tree Donations Solicited but There’s No Place to Grow : Arts park: A nonprofit group finds that it doesn’t have legal access to land in the Sepulveda Basin where it promised to plant an ‘urban forest.’

A San Fernando Valley business association, which launched a $150,000 fund drive to plant trees around a proposed Sepulveda Basin arts complex, learned to its surprise Tuesday that the would-be builders of the complex have no right to use the land where the trees are supposed to go.

And if the complex isn’t built, the basin might not have the room or water for the trees.

A spokeswoman for the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. said the group had begun a campaign to raise $150,000 for the Cultural Foundation to plant 1,000 trees around the proposed Arts Park L.A. on parkland in the Sepulveda Flood Control Basin.

The association was surprised to learn, the spokeswoman said, that the Foundation--the nonprofit group that wants to build the Arts Park--has not leased the land from the Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the basin.

“They never told us that they don’t have the land yet,” said Bonnie Golden, a spokeswoman for VICA, which represents 242 Valley businesses. “VICA wanted to do something for Earth Day and the Cultural Foundation said they needed 1,000 trees for Arts Park.”

The association sent out a mail appeal this week but has not received any donations for the trees yet, she said. There are no plans to call off the campaign, she said.

An official of the Corps of Engineers was also surprised that VICA’s fund-raising brochure promised donors that the trees would be planted at “the urban forest in Arts Park L.A.” by next fall or spring.

“Even if that area were made available for Arts Park, it is not irrigated or available for planting,” said Sheila Murphy, a Corps of Engineers project manager.

The Cultural Foundation, a Woodland Hills group, has asked to lease 60 acres in the basin to build its proposed complex of theaters, workshops and exhibit spaces. The Corps of Engineers and the city of Los Angeles, which leases the land for park use, are considering that request and will probably not make a decision until next spring, Murphy said.

A number of environmental and community groups, including the Sierra Club, have opposed the creation of the Arts Park because they say it would destroy part of the basin, the largest remaining natural space in the Valley.

The federal and city governments begin public hearings on the project next week.

Linda Kinnee, the foundation’s executive director, said her group had told VICA that it did not yet have a lease on the land. Kinnee said that if the foundation does not obtain rights to the land, it would seek to have the trees planted in the basin anyway.

City parks officials, however, said there probably is not enough irrigated land in the basin for 1,000 trees.

“It’s a big area, but there’s a limited amount of space,” said Patrick Kennedy, a senior park maintainence supervisor. “There are golf courses and soccer fields. Woodley Park is already pretty filled with trees.”

If the arts complex is built, it could include irrigation for the trees, Murphy said.

Jill Swift, a spokeswoman for the Sierra Club, called the VICA campaign another example of the Cultural Foundation making plans for land it does not own. The Sierra Club last week settled a lawsuit seeking to block the Arts Park. The environmental group was similarly angered last summer when the Cultural Foundation held an architectural competition to design buildings specifically for the basin.

“They’re using the trees to get the public excited about their project,” Swift said.