Fryman Canyon’s Cultural Values Debated : Development: Foes say ravine’s history of public use, and its plants and wildlife make it a significant site. Builder calls the claim a ploy to stall his project.

Foes of a housing tract planned for a wooded ravine in Studio City clashed Wednesday with a developer, who has invested 12 years and millions of dollars in the project, in a philosophical debate over the meaning of culture at a hearing into whether the site should be declared a cultural monument.

During the sometimes heated 2 1/2-hour session before the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission, opponents of the project said that Fryman Canyon’s history of use by the public, and the plants and wildlife dependent on its year-round stream, make it a culturally significant site.

If the commission agrees, construction on the 63-acre parcel could be delayed for up to a year. The commission was scheduled to vote on the matter Wednesday, but postoned a decision for two weeks to review documents presented by both sides.

Attorneys representing developer Fred Sahadi told the commission that the campaign to declare a privately owned natural area a cultural monument is a last-ditch effort to block an approved project.

Conceding the land’s beauty, attorney Benjamin Reznik argued that the ravine has no ecological features to differentiate it from more than 150,000 acres of land in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, and has no particular historical significance.

“We can talk all we want to about beauty, but what is unique about it?” he asked.

“No wars were fought there; no treaties were signed there. I submit to you that any historical significance of this site has arisen in the last 10 days,” he said. “This is just an attempt to use this commission for a last-minute effort to stop a development.”

Sahadi’s project was approved by city officials in 1985 after nearly seven years of planning. Grading permits were granted in 1988. But two weeks ago, the city issued a stop-work order after anti-development neighbors appealed to the commission to declare the site a cultural monument.

At the commission hearing, Allen Kishbaugh, vice president of the Hillside Federation, a coalition of homeowner groups in the Santa Monica Mountains, complained that “we are losing available open space.”

Kishbaugh characterized the ravine as “a rare gem . . . a refuge from the tumult of life in the city,” and argued that “the mountains belong to everybody and everybody has a right to come in and use them.”

In a letter to the commission, Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles), who has joined Councilman Michael Woo, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) and Mayor Tom Bradley in opposing the project,wrote that “long before most buildings with cultural heritage protection were built, Angelenos were exploring Fryman Canyon’s rich resources.”

But Reznik said that it would be “unprecedented to designate open space as culturally significant.”

Susan Genelin of the Sierra Club argued that the canyon is environmentally significant as home to many types of plants, trees and animals, including oak, walnut, sycamore and willow trees, and hawks, owls, deer and frogs.

Reznik countered that “if you declare this a cultural site, you are opening up a Pandora’s box that would require you to designate every canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains as a culturally significant site.” He asserted that the stream that opponents of the project have made a major feature of their protective efforts is merely runoff of polluted liquids from homes above the canyon.

He also argued that for the commission to declare a natural area a cultural site is a “subversion of the word ‘culture.’ ”

“Culture is something man-influenced, something we create. Culture is not nature because nature is God-made,” he said.

Karen House, another foe of the project, added that the canyon has been used in a number of motion pictures over the years, saying “the culture of our city is the product of our mountain range.”

Reznik replied that to declare land historically valuable because a movie was filmed there “makes a mockery of the historical designation.”

“Every site in this city has been filmed. Does that raise the entire city to a level of historical and cultural significance?” he asked.

After the hearing, the commissioners donned sneakers, and representatives of elected officials shed coats and ties to inspect the canyon. More than 20 people tramped the dusty trails to see the site.

Foes of the project led a nature walk, pointing out trees they said would be destroyed and demonstrating how the view would be obstructed. Reznik pointed out sewer drains that he said were responsible for most of the trickle of water in the stream below.

Sahadi, who attended the commission hearing with his wife, walked slightly behind the group, bemoaning the threat to the project in which he said he has already invested millions of dollars.

“I don’t know how to explain what I am feeling,” he told the commission. “We played this game by the rules, with more than 26 noticed public hearings between 1982 and 1988. Our plans were approved by the city and now I have been stopped cold in a manner that is unfair.”