Supervisors Warm to Hope Land Deal : Development: An L.A. councilwoman is among opponents of clustering the Ahmanson and Jordan housing projects.

Ventura County supervisors responded favorably Tuesday to a new proposal that would cluster the massive Ahmanson and Jordan housing projects at a single location and turn more than 10,000 acres of mountain property into public parkland.

For the first time, a majority of the board expressed support for the two projects if they are combined on the Ahmanson Ranch in the hills of eastern Ventura County, as proposed by Supervisor Maria VanderKolk and the two developers.

In other quarters, response to the plan was generally positive, with several environmental groups praising it and a news release from Gov. Pete Wilson’s office referring to it as “the park deal of the century” in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

But entertainer Bob Hope, who owns most of the proposed parkland, has yet to approve the proposal. And Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus, whose San Fernando Valley district is across the county line from the Ahmanson Ranch, said she would try to block it.

Picus said the 2,600-house combined project would turn four-lane Victory Boulevard into a virtual freeway.

“The city (of Los Angeles) has refused to allow Victory Boulevard to become a throughway,” Picus said, “and I will do all in my power to make certain that it never becomes one.”

VanderKolk revealed Monday that she had initiated secret negotiations between the developers last summer after Wilson urged county officials to try to find a compromise that would preserve thousands of acres of open space in Ventura and Los Angeles counties owned by Hope.

The developer working with Hope, Potomac Investment Associates, and Ahmanson Land Co. confirmed Tuesday that they have tentatively agreed to build a combined project as partners. But both were cautious, saying that many details have not been worked out.

“It’s a cake that’s half-baked,” said Fred Maas, vice president of Potomac, which has tried to develop Hope’s Jordan Ranch near Agoura Hills.

At the Ventura County board meeting Tuesday, Supervisors Vicky Howard and John K. Flynn praised the proposal. Supervisor Maggie Erickson Kildee said in an interview that she is also impressed by the plan’s broad outlines. The board’s fifth member, Supervisor Susan K. Lacey, was unavailable for comment. The board is expected to vote on the projects early next year.

“If all this comes together, there will be a lot of bouquets to hand out,” Flynn said.

Howard and Flynn said in interviews that they favor the combined project because it would preserve all of Hope’s 2,300-acre Jordan Ranch as part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and would fill in critical gaps in a regional wildlife corridor.

Flynn predicted that if Hope approves the project, it will be ratified by the county.

Howard said she strongly supports the new plan in concept.

“I certainly hope that Mr. Hope sees the wonderful legacy he can leave to the citizens of California if all of this comes together,” Howard said.

Hope, who owns 7,316 acres of the proposed parkland, could veto the deal when it is finally presented to him in writing, probably within a week or two, developers said.

“I would think it would be three weeks before this whole thing is announced, but that’s the latest,” Maas said.

Payson Wolff, Hope’s attorney, said Monday that the 88-year-old comic has strong reservations about the plan because he wants a golf course on oak-studded Jordan Ranch. But Hope will not make up his mind until he sees the proposal in writing, the lawyer said.

The proposed deal is complicated, involving five separate parcels in the Santa Monica Mountains, Simi Hills and the Santa Susana Mountains.

Under the new plan, Hope would sell to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state parks agency, 300 acres in Liberty Canyon in Calabasas; 339-acre Corral Canyon in Malibu; 2,300-acre Jordan Ranch and the 4,369-acre Runkle Ranch just north of Simi Valley Freeway at the Los Angeles County line. The total price would be $29.5 million, paid by the conservancy and the National Park Service, parks officials said.

The key change in the new plan is that 750 houses and a PGA golf course planned for Hope’s Jordan Ranch would be incorporated instead into the Ahmanson Land Co. project.

The Ahmanson company would build another 1,850 houses and a town center with 400,000 square feet of offices and stores, as previously planned. Ahmanson would also give 3,025 acres of its 5,477-acre ranch to the National Park Service. Another 1,321 acres, including two golf courses, would be privately owned open space.

Structures would be built on about 20% of the ranch’s acreage.

Several environmental groups, including The Wilderness Society, joined county supervisors in praising the new proposal because it makes a controversial land exchange between Hope and the National Park Service unnecessary.

Jordan Ranch developers had asked the park service to swap 59 acres--an 80-foot-wide, one-mile sliver through the corner of the adjacent national recreation area--for 864 acres of the ranch.

“I’m ecstatic over this,” said Russ Butcher, of the National Parks and Conservation Assn. “It’s like, wow, a miracle. We were not encouraged at all about heading off the (Jordan Ranch) project.”

But Save Open Space, the Agoura Hills-based group that has led the fight against the ranch proposals, gave the new plan a mixed review. Mary Wiesbrock, a director, said the proposal maintains the integrity of Cheeseboro Canyon, the 2,400-acre park service preserve next to Jordan Ranch.

But she said the combined project should also be moved off the Ahmanson Ranch to a location near Simi Valley because county policy generally forbids projects in areas that are not next to existing cities.

Richard Sybert, head of the governor’s office of planning and research, said the plan would fill in key pieces of the Santa Monica Mountains Nation Recreation Area, of which Jordan Ranch would become part, and complete the 35-mile wildlife corridor that stretches from Santa Clarita to the ocean.

But Sybert, apparently referring to VanderKolk, said: “Some of the local politicians may be rushing to take credit for this before it’s done.

“I hope they don’t complicate what is already a difficult set of negotiations,” he said. “There should be no doubt that we are where we are because of the governor’s personal intervention.”

Even without the proposed changes revealed this week, the Jordan and Ahmanson projects have drawn support from some environmental groups because they called for setting aside thousands of acres as parkland.

The Hope proposal, which would sell or swap 5,700 acres to park agencies, pulled Wilson and U.S. Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. into the debate.

As the project foundered this spring, both Wilson and Lujan endorsed the swap of federal parkland for an access road to Jordan Ranch. And Wilson asked Ventura County officials to come to Sacramento for a meeting.

VanderKolk, who campaigned against the ranch projects last year, said the Wilson meeting prompted her to reconsider her position.

“He asked us, ‘What would be acceptable to you?’ ” VanderKolk said. “That got us thinking, and this is the result.”

VanderKolk said she recognizes that her position is at odds with her slow-growth platform in 1990, when she upset incumbent Madge L. Schaefer.

She said, however, that she is trying to secure as much parkland as possible and not leave development decisions to future supervisors.

“This is a good solution for everybody,” she said. “And the circumstances are such that I think . . . my constituents will support me.”