Park Chief Under Fire for Land Lobbying : Conservancy: The state agency will look at the activities of Joseph T. Edmiston, who says he’s being pragmatic in promoting developments in Malibu and Calabasas.

Reacting to an intensifying controversy, board members of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy plan to discuss on Monday the propriety of lobbying efforts by the agency’s top executive on behalf of developers who sell or donate some of their land for public parks.

Conservancy Executive Director Joseph T. Edmiston has come under fire from environmentalists, homeowners and fellow government officials recently for publicly promoting developments in Malibu, Calabasas and Ventura County.

Critics say he is abetting development and compromising the role of the conservancy, a state agency that buys land for parks in the Santa Monicas and nearby foothills.

Edmiston defends his efforts as a pragmatic way of obtaining parkland in an era when land prices are rising far faster than conservancy revenue.

Edmiston testified last month before the state Coastal Commission in favor of a developer’s plan to build 26 luxury residences in Malibu’s Corral Canyon.

In turn, the developer, Potomac Investment Associates, agreed to sell the conservancy 320 acres of land in the canyon for $9 million.

In an 11-1 vote, however, the commission rejected the proposal on grounds it would ruin an environmentally sensitive plant and wildlife habitat.

During the meeting, Commissioner Gary Giacomini sharply attacked Edmiston, saying “to get this far in bed with a developer like this makes me sick.”

The Corral deal was a key part of a complex land-swap proposal involving entertainer Bob Hope, who owns the Malibu acreage. Under the terms of the exchange, which Edmiston strongly supports, Hope would sell and donate to park agencies 5,700 acres in and near the Santa Monicas for 59 acres of federally owned parkland near Agoura Hills.

The 59 acres, located in the Cheeseboro Canyon section of the Santa Monica National Recreation Area, would allow construction of a road to Hope’s 2,300-acre Jordan Ranch in Ventura County, where Potomac wants to build 750 luxury residences and a tournament-class golf course.

Edmiston has promoted the Hope swap, which he helped to engineer, as a relatively low-cost method of adding a huge chunk of land to the state park system.

In addition to the federal acreage, Hope wants $10 million.

A onetime Sierra Club lobbyist, Edmiston has headed the conservancy for 10 years.

Detractors, however, say the exchange would create a bad precedent by triggering private development in a national park.

They also say the Jordan Ranch development would create more traffic and air pollution and promote development in other areas of Ventura County with low-density zoning.

The Coastal Commission veto of the Corral Canyon project placed the entire Jordan swap in jeopardy, although backers--including Edmiston--have said they will try to restructure it.

Conservancy Chairwoman Carole B. Stevens said Friday that she has not yet heard tape recordings of what Edmiston said before the Coastal Commission.

But she said she is concerned that Edmiston might have said the conservancy board had approved the Corral Canyon deal, which it did not.

Stevens said board members at Monday’s meeting are likely to discuss Edmiston’s role in promoting development projects.

“This will not be a flaying of Joe, but a housekeeping, administrative kind of thing that sets up policies and guidelines that would make board members . . . comfortable with the role that Joe plays. There needs to be a clarification of what our respective roles are,” she said.

She declined to predict if the board will impose any restrictions on Edmiston’s lobbying efforts on behalf of developers.

Edmiston said he believed the board had OKd the Corral Canyon deal because it had instructed him to negotiate with Potomac to buy the land.

“I felt it was something that would have the backing of the agency, and we’ll see if it does If they say I did a terrible thing, then I’ve done a terrible thing,” he said.

But Edmiston said he does not believe the board will order him to change his tactics, because the conservancy does not have enough money to acquire all the property it wants without making deals with developers.

The meeting is scheduled to begin Monday at 7:30 p.m. at La Casita del Arroyo, 177 South Arroyo Blvd., Pasadena.

Times staff writer Ron Russell contributed to this report.