Plan for Park Opposes Paving of Mulholland

A proposal unveiled Tuesday night calls for development of parking, trails and ranger cottages at Mulholland Gateway Park in the Santa Monica Mountains, but comes down squarely against paving the dirt surface of Mulholland Drive atop the southwestern rim of the San Fernando Valley.

The proposal, which seeks to improve access from the Valley side for hikers and other visitors to the mountains, was presented at a public meeting in Woodland Hills by consultants for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which owns the 1,000-acre park site. About 65 people attended the meeting at El Camino Real High School.

The gateway park, stitched together from lands acquired from developers, forms the northern fringe of what park planners call “The Big Wild”--an 18,500-acre wildlife area that includes 10,000-acre Topanga State Park and other public lands at Encino Reservoir and Rustic, Sullivan and Mission canyons. The area already is used by mountain bikers, equestrians, and hikers--some of whom wanted it left alone as a northern extension of Topanga State Park. But the limited amenities sought in the proposal offered no comfort to those on the opposite side, who sought intensive development in the park--hoping that would spur paving of Mulholland.

The proposal envisions three new eastern and northern gateways into the Big Wild to go with those that already exist at Will Rogers State Historic Park and Trippett Ranch in Topanga State Park. The eastern gateway would be San Vicente Mountain Park, a litter-strewn former Nike missile observation post turned over to the city of Los Angeles but never run as a park.