Bond Proposal Would Double Hellman Park Wilderness : Preservation: If voters approve, $15 million will be spent to buy 300 acres of prime, undeveloped hillside and build trails, picnic facilities, parking lots and access roads.

A wilderness park in the Whittier Hills would more than double in size if county voters approve an $817-million bond issue in November, preserving indefinitely some of the last prime hillside land untouched by development in eastern Los Angeles County.

The county bond issue would set aside $15 million to add about 300 acres to Whittier’s 200-acre Hellman Park and preserve it as wilderness. Land would be bought with $10 million of the bond, and and $5 million would go toward such park improvements as trails, picnic facilities, parking lots and access roads. Whittier would be responsible for maintenance.

The extension of Hellman Park would stretch across a hillside noted for steep, rugged canyons, 150-year-old oaks and sycamores and a climate of cool, moist nights and dry, balmy days.

“It’s really a special area,” said Dave Cowardin, president of Friends of the Whittier Hills, a Whittier conservation group that has long sought to bar development in the hills. “It’s an interface between the coastal basin, which experiences fog, and the desert. It’s unique as an example of what was once common in the Puente Hills.”

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors placed the bond issue on the November ballot by a 3-1 vote, with Supervisor Pete Schabarum casting the lone dissenting vote. Supervisor Kenneth Hahn missed the Tuesday session.

Whittier Mayor Thomas K. Sawyer and Councilman Robert F. Woehrmann attended the meeting to lobby for the parks measure, as did Assistant City Manager Manny Ocampo.

“Whittier is definitely a major beneficiary, but many cities are benefiting,” Ocampo said. “It is a regional program. Just as beaches benefit the whole county, so does a regional park.”

Ocampo said developers and major landowners have not opposed the idea thus far because their land would be bought at market value.

The entire bond issue would be paid for by increased property taxes, an average increase of $10 a year for a property with an assessed value of $125,000, said Esther Feldman, spokeswoman for the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, which wrote the bond issue after consulting with political and civic leaders across the county.

Three groups compose Feldman’s organization: the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (which acquires land in the Santa Monica Mountains for parks), the Conejo Recreation and Park District and the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District. Both park districts administer public lands in Ventura County and will not be affected directly by the measure.

The bond issue includes money for parks and recreation programs in all county cities and also specifies particular projects, such as the Whittier Hills, for special financing.

Feldman said the park idea fit perfectly into what the bond issue seeks to accomplish, because the hills are a regional resource whose preservation has strong public and private support.

“It’s one of the last remaining spots of open space in the Puente Hills,” Feldman said. “It has mountains and canyons and streams which run a good portion of the year. You go up there and you hear no traffic in one of the most populated areas of the state.”

Such land has been so desirable that only a unique combination of factors has left more than 2,500 acres of these hills intact.

Conservationist Cowardin said that most of the terrain has a slope of 50 degrees or more: “That’s unbuildable for most people. And the Whittier earthquake fault moves right through there.”

In addition, Rose Hills Memorial Park Assn. owns large sections of nearby hillsides and has maintained open space around its cemetery.

Cowardin also said that in the 80 years that oil companies have drilled in the hills, “the oil has been more valuable to Chevron than the land.”

Other than the oil companies and the memorial park, much of the land belongs to the Hellman estate and the Childs estate, both private trusts.

Another factor limiting building has been Whittier’s longstanding hillside ordinance to prevent overdevelopment of the hills.

Ocampo said: “Any development must meet stringent guidelines of slope requirements and preserve the existing environment, including the natural terrain. The ordinance limits density and grading. It allows no building on ridgelines, and there are restrictions to preserve flora and fauna.

“It has been effective,” Ocampo said. “It has resulted in literally no development in that area.”

Without it, noted a local developer who asked to remain anonymous, “By now, the hills would have been covered over with houses like postage stamps.”

Cowardin and Councilwoman Helen McKenna-Rahder are among those who would like to see a wilderness park of closer to 2,500 acres, five times the likely size of an expanded Hellman Park. They said time may be running short to save vast areas of hillside, as oil reserves decline and Chevron USA Inc. and other landowners explore development options.

Much of the hills remain unincorporated county territory and thus outside of Whittier’s direct control.

“It’s not just an anti-development issue,” McKenna-Rahder said. “It’s a pro-preservation issue. In Whittier, we have an area that gives us an ocean breeze and an edge on the smog and the traffic.”