‘Big Wild’ Access Plan Unveiled : Santa Monica Mountains: The proposal does not include paving a seven-mile stretch of Mulholland Drive.

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 planning 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 in Woodland Hills.

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.

Besides improving visitor access, the goal of the proposal is “preserving and fortifying the Big Wild,” according to a written summary released Tuesday by Community Development by Design of Berkeley, the conservancy’s consultants.

“It is safe to say that we started out designing a park and discovered” a unique urban wilderness, Randy Hester, a partner in the consulting firm, told the gathering.

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.

The conservancy wants to take over management of San Vicente park and is negotiating the issue with the city.

The proposal unveiled Tuesday for San Vicente calls for creation of 10 parking spaces, repair of an existing observation tower, planting of shade trees, restoration of natural vegetation, and development of a small picnic area, restrooms, drinking water and a trailhead. A ranger residence would also be built at the San Vicente site.

The proposal calls for two northern gateways--one at the mouth of Caballero Canyon east of Braemar Country Club and the other near Mulholland at the top of Reseda Boulevard, which was recently extended as part of a luxury housing development.

Both sites would have parking and a trail head. A ranger cottage would be built at the top of Reseda Boulevard.

For months, planning for the park has been enmeshed in the turbulent conflict over paving part of Mulholland Drive--the bumpy seven-mile dirt road between Encino and Woodland Hills. Opposing groups have clashed over the design, less out of interest in the park than out of interest in its impact on other development issues.

Some conservationists and hillside residents of Tarzana have sought minimal park development, fearing a developed park would require paving of access roads or parts of Mulholland Drive. This, they fear, would encourage more housing tracts or even trash dumps in currently inaccessible areas of the mountains.

On the other hand, some hillside residents of Encino--joined together as the Encino Traffic Safety Committee--have sought to use the park as a way to create new shortcuts for heavy cross-mountain commuter traffic that now passes through their neighborhood.

If the gateway park were highly developed, requiring some paving of Mulholland Drive, it would be financially and politically easier for the city to finish the paving and thus create the shortcuts.

The committee pressed its case so vociferously that the conservancy and its consultants contracted for a $9,000 traffic study of possible solutions to the neighborhood problem.

The proposal presented Tuesday left open the possibility of improving Mulholland Drive as a dirt or gravel road. But it rejected the idea of paving, citing negative effects on deer and other wildlife.

The Encino traffic problem would “not be solved by the paving of Mulholland” anyway, the summary said.

It recommended, however, that the conservancy back efforts by the traffic safety committee to get relief from the city.

“While this neighborhood’s traffic problems are not a direct concern of the park,” the neighborhood’s support for paving Mulholland Drive has “a direct impact on the park, wildlife and the preservation of the Big Wild,” according to the summary.

The conservancy should support the traffic safety committee if it goes to the city for assistance, the summary said.

The proposal left open alternative designs for the parking areas and other features in the park. After presentation of the proposal, citizens broke into groups to discuss and recommend preferred alternatives.

Guided by those recommendations, planners hope to complete a more formal draft of the plan by June, said Marcia McNally, a partner in Community Development by Design. She said the timing and cost of park development are unknown.