Major Environmental Group Opposes Hope Land Swap : Parks: The organization says most of the acreage the developers want to trade for an access route might have to remain open anyway.

A proposed exchange of federal parkland for portions of the private Jordan Ranch in eastern Ventura County drew new opposition Thursday from a prominent environmental group.

Russ Butcher, Pacific Southwest regional director for the National Parks and Conservation Assn., said in a letter that the group has reluctantly concluded that the proposed land swap “is not in the best public interest.” The three-page letter was sent to David Gackenbach, superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

The Washington-based association, which has 285,000 members, joins the Wilderness Society as the second major conservation group to oppose the land exchange, the subject of an emotional battle that has pitted local environmentalists against one another.

The land swap was proposed by entertainer Bob Hope and Potomac Investment Associates, a development firm that wants to build 750 luxury residences and a tournament golf course on Hope’s 2,308-acre Jordan Ranch property in eastern Ventura County.

To develop the tract, Potomac needs to build an access road to the Jordan Ranch across 59 acres of adjacent land within Cheeseboro Canyon in the national recreation area. In return for the 59 acres, Potomac and Hope have offered to deed 864 acres of Jordan Ranch to the National Park Service and also donate and sell more than 4,000 acres of other Hope mountain properties to state and federal park agencies.

It appeared “on the face . . . that the National Park Service would come out way ahead on this deal,” Butcher said in his letter.

But he said Ventura County officials, who ultimately will determine what gets built on Jordan Ranch, may require Potomac to set aside as open space “much if not most of the very same acreage” the firm has offered the Park Service.

And despite painstaking precautions, the letter said, construction and use of the access road to Jordan Ranch “would still dramatically compromise the special environmental quality” of the remaining 2,000 acres of federal parkland in Cheeseboro Canyon.

The Park Service is revising a draft environmental impact statement on the proposed exchange. Gackenbach said Butcher’s letter “raises some points that we need to take a look at.”

The conservation association “is certainly an organization that we respect and deal with a lot,” he said. “We would take serious consideration of their comments.”

Gackenbach said--and Butcher confirmed--that the conservation association was leaning in favor of endorsing the land swap as recently as two weeks ago.

“That’s true,” Butcher said late Thursday in a telephone interview. “This has been an agonizing decision on our part. . . . It’s been a really, really tough call.”

Park Service officials at one time endorsed the land swap in concept, but have since adopted a position of neutrality.

The agency is at least several months away from deciding whether to go ahead with the exchange. However, its position on the matter may become irrelevant, because Ventura County supervisors have shown no inclination to approve a Jordan Ranch project of the scale Potomac wants. If they permit only limited development, Potomac might not need the access road and may withdraw the exchange offer.

While awaiting Ventura County’s decision, Hope has turned to the city of Simi Valley, in a long-shot effort to get it to annex Jordan Ranch and approve the development. The city is studying the proposal.