Report Weighs Golf Course’s Effects on Area : Big Tujunga Wash: The study says the club would harm one of the most sensitive habitats in the city.

Developing an 18-hole private golf club on a rugged 355-acre site in Big Tujunga Wash would severely damage one of the city’s most environmentally sensitive areas, according to a long-awaited report on the controversial project released Thursday.

The $50-million project proposed by Cosmo World Corp., a fiscally troubled firm owned by a reclusive Japanese businessman, would jeopardize the habitat of several rare and endangered species, including the slender-horned spineflower, the environmental impact report says.

On the plus side, the more than $10 million in flood control projects to be built by Cosmo World to protect its golf course from the floodwaters that sometimes sweep down Big Tujunga Wash would also benefit some adjoining residential areas, the 5 1/2-inch-thick document said.

Earlier this year, The Times reported that Mayor Tom Bradley and at least one of his aides repeatedly called city planners to inquire about the progress of their environmental review of the project, after Bradley had accepted more than $30,000 in campaign contributions from the developer.

The calls were interpreted by the city Planning Department as a signal that Bradley expected the project to be expedited, and The Times found that in fact the department took several shortcuts in its review of the project.

Half a dozen homeowner groups subsequently urged the city’s Ethics Commission to investigate whether Bradley had acted improperly in seeking to nudge the project along. But the commission dropped its inquiry, saying it could find no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

The country club would be “a private facility for 500 corporate memberships,” the environmental report said.

The report also says that Chatsworth Reservoir, located near West Hills, would be an “environmentally superior” alternative site for a major golf club. When the possibility arose two years ago of using the reservoir, owned by the city’s Department of Water and Power, as a housing site, many neighbors protested against changing the land use.

Merryl Edelstein, head of the Planning Department’s environmental study unit, said the report suggested alternative sites to give the city Planning Commission and the City Council--which ultimately must review the merits of allowing the project to go forward--a view of where else a golf course might be located.

Councilman Joel Wachs’ office declined to comment on the report’s findings. The proposed project is located in Wachs’ district.

The environmental report has been in preparation for more than four years and it is expected that the next stage for the developer--the review of the project’s application for various planning permits at City Hall--will be complicated and controversial.

“It’s going to be long and involved,” predicted Sylvia Gross, land-use chairwoman for the Sunland-Tujunga Residents Assn.

Mark Armbruster, attorney for Cosmo World, said that the development firm is now hoping for a May, 1993, groundbreaking and would probably file its applications today for conditional use permits to operate the golf course and to sell liquor at its clubhouse.

Armbruster denied reports that Cosmo World may be financially unable to proceed. “I’ve got a conditional use permit filing fee check for the city for $35,000,” Armbruster said. “So I’d say the financial commitment to proceed is there.”

But Gross said she worried that Cosmo World might be unable to complete the project. A half-done project or one delayed due to financial problems could cause more problems than a project that’s quickly completed, she said.

She noted that Cosmo World, whose sole owner is reclusive businessman Minoru Isutani, last year sold its world-famous Pebble Beach golf properties due to financial problems.

The environmental report’s key finding was that the project would be located in one of a handful of regions identified in the city’s General Plan as “ecologically important.” Other areas so designated include the Ballona wetlands near Playa Vista, undeveloped segments of the Santa Monica Mountains west of the San Diego Freeway, and the Chatsworth Reservoir.

The project “would result in loss of a regionally important area” with “unique wildlife habitats and unique plant life,” the report said. The spineflower, a tiny plant that is on the federal list of endangered species, would be harmed, along with other “sensitive” species, including various bats, the cactus wren and the San Diego horned lizard.

Still, there is some dispute about the project’s impact. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service advised the authors of the report that the project would jeopardize the continued existence of the spineflower in Big Tujunga Wash, one of about a half a dozen places it grows. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said, in documents filed for use in the report, that Cosmo World has devised a plan that would enable the spineflower to survive.

The city’s environmental report gives the most credence to the analysis by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

City planning officials said they were to fully analyze the project’s traffic and parking impacts.

Day-to-day play by local golfers “would not produce significant traffic impacts,” the report said. The biggest transportation impacts would come from making the golf course the site of a major tournament. In fact, the report says that it is Cosmo World’s intention to try to woo the Los Angeles Open away from its existing venue at the Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades.

Armbruster said the completion of the report should “add new impetus” to Cosmo World’s discussions with the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce, sponsor of the Los Angeles Open.

A major tournament might draw 16,000 cars a day, the report said. Although the developer has no contract to host such an event, the report recommends ways to mitigate the impact on the immediate Sunland area, including requiring visitors to park elsewhere and use shuttle buses to reach the course.