Park Plans Would Be Revived by Prop. B : Bonds: A hiking trail and re-creating a popular lake at Hansen Dam would get the largest share of allocated funds.

If Los Angeles County voters approve a massive park bonds proposition on next Tuesday’s ballot, two major projects that have been on the shelf for more than a decade will get most of the San Fernando Valley’s $42-million slice of the $817-million park pie.

The two--a series of hiking trails across the Valley’s northern rim and a swimming lake at Hansen Dam Recreation Center--long have headed the wish lists of Valley park activists. The measure also includes $43 million for a variety of projects in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

Although parks measures have been popular with California voters in recent years, passage of Proposition B is not assured. Because the bonds would be financed by higher property taxes, the measure must be approved by two-thirds of those voting.

Esther Feldman, who heads Citizens for Safe Neighborhood Parks, said county voters approved Proposition 70, a 1988 statewide park bond measure, by 71%, “the highest percentage of any county in California.”

The statewide measure, which passed and is being paid for through state tax revenue, earmarked funds for individual projects throughout California, a tactic adopted by the drafters of Proposition B.

Proposition B “hits closer to home in terms of property taxes, but on the other hand, the benefits are closer to home too,” Feldman said.

Of the two major Valley projects, the $15-million Hansen Dam swimming lake is the better bet to materialize in the near future if the measure passes.

The Los Angeles City Recreation and Parks Department is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the Lake View Terrace site, on a master plan for the 1,400-acre recreation area, including several suggested sites for the lake.

Frank Catania, the department’s director of planning, said that $15 million “should at least finance the cost of the swimming lake and maybe several other projects as well, including picnic areas, parking, landscaping and irrigation.”

Until the late 1970s, Hansen Dam was a popular swimming, fishing and boating locale. But the park’s 140-acre lake gradually became choked with silt until it was reduced to a swampy pond that has been unused for nearly a decade.

An early draft of the master plan calls for renovation of hiking and horseback riding trails, playing fields, and the eventual development of a 70-acre lake for boating and fishing and several smaller lakes, including the swimming lake in the bond measure.

Although plans for creating the swimming lake are well advanced, even if built immediately the lake could not be filled until the state’s drought ends, Catania said.

“It requires fresh water to fill a lake like that,” he said, “and we could not do that with water rationing on the horizon.”

The so-called “Rim of the Valley Trail,” which would get $20 million from Proposition B, has been promoted for years by Valley park activists and by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Throughout the 1980s, the conservancy has been buying land that it hopes to eventually weave into an unbroken string of trails and parks stretching from Simi Valley across the Valley’s northern rim into Pasadena.

Carolyn Barr, conservancy project analyst, said the Proposition B money will buy many miles of trail but is “just a fraction” of the total needed to complete the corridor.

Proposition B also would set aside $5 million for improvements to the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area, which also is owned by the Corps of Engineers and administered by city parks officials.

Improvements include new softball and soccer fields, lighting of existing fields and development of a wildlife preserve with a pond.

Also included in the proposition is $1.9 million to build a regional community center on Canwood Street in Agoura Hills. The center, just east of Kanan Road, will have a gymnasium, a large meeting room and smaller rooms for classes.

Of the $43 million for the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, $10 million is designated for each of the two valleys for the purchase of wildlife habitat and natural areas.

The north county share also includes $5 million for a sports complex in Santa Clarita on public land east of the Golden State Freeway and south of Castaic Lake State Recreation Area. The 51-acre site would include softball, soccer and football fields.

Also included is $1.5 million to buy open space and recreation sites along the Santa Clarita River, $1 million to build a nature interpretive center at William S. Hart Regional Park in Santa Clarita, and $200,000 to build a conservation center in Saugus, where schoolchildren will be given instruction in forest ecology.

Additional projects for the Antelope Valley include $8 million for a multipurpose regional park, which officials say would include fields for softball, soccer and football, tennis courts, a golf course and a gymnasium. No site has been chosen, Feldman said.

Also, $3 million is designated to buy unique desert habitat near Lancaster, including land bordering state wildflower preserves.

The measure contains $3 million for trails to link regional parks in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys. Feldman said park officials are hoping to “connect dozens of bits and pieces of trails leading out from existing parks in the mountains.”

Also included is $1 million to build a swimming pool at Val Verde Community Regional Park.