Group Urges Inquiry Over Golf Course Project Delays : Development: As environmentalists accuse Mayor Bradley of improperly intervening, pro-business activists question city planners’ actions.

If there is a culprit to be found in a Japanese developer’s campaign to win City Hall approval for a golf course project in Big Tujunga Wash, it is the city planning bureaucracy, not Mayor Tom Bradley, according to a Sunland-Tujunga group.

Leaders of the Foothill Alliance of Informed Residents contended last week that the golf course project of Cosmo World Corp. has suffered from “unwarranted delays” at the hands of city planners and that the cause of these delays should be investigated.

Conversely, homeowner and environmental groups had urged a watchdog agency to investigate whether it was improper for Bradley to seek a speedup of the department’s review of the Cosmo World project after receiving $30,000 in campaign contributions from the developer.

After the watchdog agency declined last week to investigate Bradley, the Foothill Alliance, which has a pro-business philosophy, called for an investigation of the Planning Department.

But neither Foothill Alliance President Charlyne Pleasant nor the group’s vice president, Chris Griffiths, was certain who should investigate the planners.

“I really don’t know,” said Pleasant, a Sunland real estate agent.

The pair, however, feel sure of one thing: Cosmo World has not gotten a fair shake from city planners.

“All these delays have threatened to kill a good project,” said Griffiths, a mortgage broker from La Crescenta.

The city’s environmental review of the 355-acre golf course plan began four years ago. The final environmental impact report is expected to be completed and released to the public in the next few weeks. Once the report is out, the developer will seek City Council approval.

“The next few months are going to be full of action,” Pleasant predicted. Pleasant said the Foothill Alliance will be girding itself to do battle with other northeast San Fernando Valley groups that oppose the Cosmo World project.

The Foothill Alliance favors the proposed private golf club, which it believes will give a badly needed shot-in-the-arm to the reputation and economy of the Sunland-Tujunga area.

Meanwhile, Melanie Fallon, acting director of the Planning Department, defended her department’s environmental review of the Cosmo World project.

“I wish it hadn’t taken as long as it did, but I’m not afraid to be challenged on the department’s review of this project,” she said. “It’s been done professionally.”

The Cosmo World case has been lengthy because “it is a bigger and more complicated project than most we encounter,” Fallon said.

Several special issues have complicated and protracted the city’s review, the planning executive noted, including the presence of an endangered plant species in Big Tujunga Wash and an evaluation of a multimillion-dollar plan by the developer to protect the golf course from the often unruly waters of the wash.

The department’s critics are mistaken when they say the city has actively reviewed the Cosmo World project since 1988, Fallon adds.

“Just because this EIR has been in process since 1988 doesn’t mean it has actually been in our shop all that time,” Fallon said.

In fact, developers play a big role in determining how fast their projects are reviewed in Los Angeles. The city relies on the developers to produce the basic environmental documentation for their projects, although it is the city’s duty to ensure that EIRs are objective, accurate and complete.

Some city planners also have said privately that there have been problems with reports by Michael Brandman & Associates, the consulting firm Cosmo World hired to prepare its environmental documentation for the city.

A recent audit of the Planning Department found that the environmental documents the Brandman firm produced for four other projects had to be reviewed and edited five times by city planners before they could be deemed complete. By contrast, the documents of most other consulting firms had to be edited only three times. Out of 12 firms, Brandman had the worst record, according to the audit.

However, the same management audit criticized the Planning Department for taking too long to conduct environmental reviews.

The Foothill Alliance’s calls for an inquiry into the Planning Department arose Friday after it was reported that city Ethics Commission chief Benjamin Bycel had declined to investigate the propriety of Bradley’s ties to Cosmo World.

Bycel had been petitioned to investigate Bradley by homeowner and environmental groups, who cited a report published by The Times in February.

The Times found that Bradley and at least one of his aides repeatedly called city planners to inquire about the progress of the environmental review of the Cosmo World project.

Because of such calls, the Planning Department identified the golf course as a priority of the mayor’s office. Although city planners denied that mayoral interest influenced them, The Times found that the department took several shortcuts in its review of this project.

For example, the department publicly released an interim environmental assessment of the project that its own staff later criticized as misleading and “postured to essentially promote the project.”

A deputy planning director told The Times that it was a violation of policy for the document to have been released without first being reviewed for accuracy by city planners.