Conservancy Seeks to Save Canyon Areas : Preservation: Peninsula group targets more than 900 acres of pristine land it wants to keep from development.

In the pristine canyons below Del Cerro Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, visitors are greeted with a spectacular ocean view, soaring hawks and the shrieks of peacocks. Even though almost all of the property is privately owned, hikers and nature lovers are a common sight.

To the developers who have acquired land in the canyons, the area conjures up visions of multimillion-dollar homes and championship golf courses. To Bill Ailor, the same land, much of which is in a landslide area, conjures up a vision of a public park left in its natural state.

“On the other side of this hill there are 15 million people,” Ailor said as he walked down a path that twists through the canyons. “Here, it is just about like it has always been.”

Ailor is president of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, a group formed 18 months ago to acquire and protect undeveloped land in the four peninsula cities and San Pedro.

Modeling itself on hundreds of other land trusts that have sprouted in Southern California and across the country, the nonprofit organization has drawn up a list of properties totaling more than 900 acres that it hopes to save from development.

“Every place that can be built on will be at some time,” Ailor said. The conservancy was established to thwart those efforts.

Ailor and officials at land trusts elsewhere say the Palos Verdes conservancy’s most ambitious goal--to preserve an estimated 800 acres in the canyons of Ranchos Palos Verdes--will be difficult. Orange County developer Barry G. Hon has said he hopes to build on about 400 acres he owns in the canyon areas.

Moreover, Hon and another developer, the Monaghan Co., have proposals before the city to build hotels on the coastline. Those proposals have polarized the community, with some Rancho Palos Verdes residents favoring the developments and others opposing them.

“The next year is critical, I believe,” Ailor said. “There are a lot of things churning.”

Despite the high emotions, Ailor said, the conservancy’s philosophy is to remain nonpolitical. One of its board members, Chris Manning, resigned from the group last fall to start another group, Peninsula Preservation. Unlike the conservancy, Manning’s group is openly critical of what it perceives to be a pro-development majority on the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council.

The conservancy is one of more than 800 land trusts in the United States, according to Jean Hocker, executive director of the Land Trust Alliance, a Virginia-based group that provides assistance to trusts. The alliance estimates that a new land trust is formed every week somewhere in the country.

Like many of the other trusts, the Palos Verdes conservancy has assembled a board of directors with varying degrees of expertise in areas ranging from law to real estate. It has no full-time paid staff members and relies on money it collects from 350 dues-paying members to pay for a newsletter and other business costs.

Ailor, an engineer and former Rolling Hills Estates planning commissioner, said the conservancy hopes to acquire land by raising money as the property becomes available or through outright donations from landowners, who could get substantial tax benefits. The conservancy has no intention of trying to acquire prime, oceanfront property for open space. Such property now fetches up to a million dollars an acre, he estimated.

Rather, the group hopes to acquire inland properties--land that many people who favor open space perceive as more desirable because the sites are often more secluded and offer panoramic views. Additionally, such land is often difficult to develop because of the topography, thereby making donations from landowners more likely.

Indeed, the conservancy’s first donation, 20 acres of land in Rancho Palos Verdes near Hesse Park, came from the Zuckerman family, longtime home builders on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Although the land was zoned for homes on five-acre lots, the steep canyon terrain would have made development of the site difficult, Ailor said.

The Zuckerman donation is the only land the conservancy has thus far acquired. Nevertheless, it is actively pursuing several other acquisitions, including a 26-acre parcel of land in Rolling Hills Estates behind Dapplegray Intermediate School, which was closed in June, 1987.

Ailor said City Council members have supported the conservancy’s plans for the city to acquire the property, which is held by the Chandler Trust. The trust is named for a family that operates a quarry and concrete business near the undeveloped land.

Ailor declined to say how much money the property could cost, and a representative of the Chandler Trust declined to comment. However, if negotiations are successful, the conservancy hopes that a proposed $750-million county bond act will provide the city with money to buy the property.

The bond measure, known as the Los Angeles County Beaches, Wildlife and Park Land Conservation Act, is now being readied for the November ballot by the Malibu-based Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a nonprofit public agency that provides park services. The act would provide funds for beaches, parks, wildlife and museum projects throughout the county, according to Esther Feldman, the authority’s public outreach director.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote within several months whether to put the measure before voters, Feldman said.

Another project on the conservancy’s list is the county-owned Shoreline Park, a 72-acre undeveloped park in Rancho Palos Verdes next to San Pedro. The conservancy, along with the Audubon Society, Sierra Club and California Native Plant Society, would maintain the park as a natural habitat.

The Shoreline effort received a small boost weeks ago when the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council, at the urging of Councilman Robert E. Ryan, instructed the city’s Recreation and Parks Committee to determine how the park could be obtained by the city. Ryan’s idea is for the city to obtain a long-term lease from the county and then turn the park over to the conservancy to manage.

“I think the conservancy’s future is tied up very definitely with the city,” Ryan said. “I would like to use them as a vehicle to do some of these things rather than put (the burden) on the taxpayer’s back.”

Whatever the outcome of efforts to acquire the Chandler Trust and Shoreline properties, the conservancy’s biggest challenge will be its attempt to preserve hundreds of acres in the Rancho Palos Verdes canyons as open space.

“It is a big chunk of land,” said Councilman John McTaggart, who favors the conservancy’s goal. “And I think the developers would fight like hell to keep them from achieving it.”

Both Hon and the Monaghan Co., which is attempting to develop the former Marineland site on the coastline, are entertaining ideas to develop land they own in the canyon area. There is a building moratorium on most of that land because of past landslides. However, Hon has said he is prepared to build an 18-hole golf course and single-family homes on the acreage he owns in the moratorium area if it is geologically feasible and he receives city approval. Monaghan wants to build a private country club on nearby land, according to his spokeswoman, Joan Hanley.

Ailor said the conservancy has approached Hon and Monaghan and outlined the conservancy’s goals. And even though the conservancy doesn’t have the funds to buy property, Ailor said that area residents have informally pledged $130,000 to buy acreage owned by Hon.

Hon said the conservancy’s “heart is in the right place,” but questioned its ability to raise the necessary money to purchase property. “I think they need to prove their ability to everyone,” he said.

Hanley said Monaghan views the conservancy as a “viable organization” to handle undeveloped land in the city but does not want to discuss specifics until the company knows what it will be allowed to develop at the Marineland site.

The company’s battle to build a hotel, as well as homes on that site, could unwittingly assist the conservancy in achieving its goals. On Tuesday night, Rancho Palos Verdes City Council members made it clear to Monaghan that they would support the company’s plan to build homes on the site only if it was willing to leave a portion of the land it owns in the canyons as open space. Presently, the Marineland site is not zoned for homes.

Ailor said he is encouraged by the council’s action, as well as by comments made at the meeting by residents who support the idea of preserving open space.

“It seemed like there was a lot of testimony supporting what we are trying to do,” he said.