Look at Alternative Off-Road Vehicle Site Urged : Recreation: The original Whitney Canyon location is opposed by the Disney Co., Santa Clarita officials and environmentalists.

Fear of losing a legal battle over a proposed park for off-road vehicles above Santa Clarita has prompted requests for state and local studies of an alternative site.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich is scheduled to ask the other supervisors this morning to direct county planners to look at the alternative site in Hume Canyon off the Sierra Highway.

Also today, a bill introduced by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) that would provide up to $175,000 for the study of Hume Canyon is to be considered by the Assembly’s Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee.

The original site, in Whitney Canyon northeast of the junction of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways, has been strongly opposed by the Walt Disney Co., which has a filming site nearby, and by Santa Clarita city officials and local environmentalists.

“The Whitney Canyon site has been bogged down for years,” Katz said. “There are a tremendous number of people in the San Fernando Valley who enjoy off-road vehicles and until we have a designated area, they will either be driving longer distances or using areas that are not appropriate.”

Whitney Canyon was chosen for further study in 1988 from a field of about 50 candidates that included Hume Canyon. Closure of the Indian Dunes motocross track in Valencia had left off-road motorcyclists and drivers of dune buggies, all-terrain vehicles and jeeps with no legal place to ride closer than Palmdale or Gorman.

Both sites are owned by developer Ray Watt, said Antonovich’s parks deputy, Peter Whittingman.

Neither Katz nor Antonovich has given up on Whitney Canyon. Katz estimated that the Whitney Canyon analysis has already cost the state about $400,000. Under the county and state proposals scheduled for consideration today, environmental studies will be completed for the two sites simultaneously.

Although the Hume Canyon site, at about 700 acres, is a little larger than Whitney Canyon, off-road vehicle enthusiasts said its location within half a mile of houses makes it less desirable.

“People would complain about night lighting and noise--it would have a lot of restrictions,” said Jerry Counts, land-use specialist for the American Motorcyclist Assn.

Counts, however, said riders so desperately need another legal place to ride that they would accept Hume Canyon if prospects do not improve for the original site.

The Disney Co. has said vehicle noise at Whitney Canyon would interrupt filming at its nearby Golden Oak Ranch. The company has filed a lawsuit to block use of the site, Katz said. Disney attorneys did not return telephone calls Monday.

Santa Clarita city officials and local environmentalists have also objected to Whitney Canyon’s proximity to the Angeles National Forest and Placerita Canyon State Park.

The county last year completed a noise study using motorcycles and cannons that showed noise from the site could be mitigated through riding restrictions, Whittingman said. But Disney countered those findings with its own study, which showed that park noise would be disruptive, said Lee Chauvet, deputy director of the state Department of Parks and Recreation.

Chauvet hired a private consultant to review the two studies. The consultant’s findings will be released to the county and Disney in May, he said.

But Chauvet raised doubts about whether the park would ever be built because of the state’s enormous financial deficit. In 1989, the county estimated that the park would cost at least $17.5 million.