Study Said to Favor Bob Hope Land Swap : Jordan Ranch: Interior Department official says the environmental report backs a proposal to exchange parkland for private holdings.

A top U. S. Interior Department official said Monday that the government has completed a final environmental report that is “very favorable” toward the proposed exchange of federal parkland in Agoura Hills for adjacent Ventura County holdings owned by entertainer Bob Hope.

Mike Hayden, assistant secretary of the Interior for fish, wildlife and parks, called the environmental impact statement “a very thorough analysis” of Hope’s controversial request to obtain 59 acres of Cheeseboro Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in exchange for hundreds of acres of his Jordan Ranch holdings.

“The documentation in the EIS is very favorable to the proposed swap,” Hayden said in a brief prepared statement released in Washington.

Mary Wiesbrock, a member of the board of Save Open Space, a group opposed to the exchange, called Hayden’s remark “scandalous. . . . Our parklands are supposed to be the only things we have that are safe from development.”

Still, Hayden’s comment came as no surprise. Interior Department officials have long been thought to favor the exchange, despite an official posture of neutrality. Last March, for example, a letter from Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. to Gov. Pete Wilson called the land swap “personally attractive.”

However, National Park Service officials in Agoura Hills, who administer the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, were caught off guard by the announcement. They said the report was still at the printer’s and not yet available to the public, Hayden’s statement to the contrary.

An announcement of the report’s availability is expected to appear in the Federal Register as early as today, said Jean Bray, public affairs officer for the national recreation area. She said copies of the document may be available to the public on Monday.

Potomac Investment Associates, which is seeking to build 750 luxury homes and a championship golf course on Jordan Ranch, needs the 59 acres in Cheeseboro Canyon for an access road. In return, Hope would deed the park service more than 1,100 acres of Jordan Ranch and adjacent lands.

Fred Maas, a Potomac vice president, said Monday night that he was “delighted that the Department of Interior has taken a positive stance.”

The final report includes revisions from the draft environmental impact statement that the park service issued last year, but Hayden’s statement did not discuss the changes.

The environmental statement is one in a series of steps that must be taken by the park service before concluding the land exchange. For example, the agency still must perform appraisals of the properties that would be exchanged.