Equestrian Center in Land Feud : Hansen Dam: Army Corps of Engineers is using half of facility’s parking lot to replant native vegetation. Operator threatens to shut down.

It’s been a long, hard ride, says 65-year-old ex-jockey Eddie J. Milligan, who won a contract from Los Angeles in 1989 to develop the decrepit Hansen Dam Equestrian Center.

Using profits from the sale of another equestrian center, Milligan, backed by a wealthy San Francisco investor, built the old 20-acre Hansen facility into a handsome enterprise, complete with 200 horse stalls, 16 paddocks, arenas, clubhouse and parking.

He pays the city $2,500 a month in rent and says he’s never wrung a profit from the center, wedged between the Big and Little Tujunga washes.

But Milligan again has become embroiled in a another land-use dispute with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the land because it is in a protected flood plain.

And although he’s thrown down the gauntlet before, the most recent action by the corps has prompted Milligan to threaten once again to close down the popular facility.

Last Friday, corps staff spiked a line of wooden stakes down the center of a dirt lot used for trailer parking in the equestrian center, declaring the area a “biological mitigation buffer zone.” In plain English, this means the area must be replanted with native vegetation to make up for the facility’s incursion in the area.

“They annihilated 50% of my parking,” Milligan said, his blue eyes ablaze. “I sure as hell can’t hold events without a place to park the trailers. That lot was in the plans sent to the corps years ago, and now they’re telling me it can’t be there. I can’t do business anymore with these people. I can’t trust them.”

Milligan sent a letter this week to Los Angeles city parks commissioners and the City Council demanding compensation for the $3 million he and his partner have invested in the center. He contends that the city is not making good on its pledge to lease him all the acreage he needs to run the operation.

But the feisty jockey is open to negotiation.

“If the city quits jerking me around,” he said, “gives me the land I bid on and gives me a 30-year lease, I’ll think about staying. But it had better do something fast.”

Although the Army Corps of Engineers owns the land and has authority over its development, it leases the property to the city Department of Recreation and Parks. Milligan rents the land from the city and thinks it should pay him back for his investment.

The contract between Milligan and the city has been extended on a monthly basis since 1989. Since then, Milligan has paid for numerous improvements, including planting more than 400 trees.

Members of local equestrian groups and others said that if Milligan leaves, it will be a huge loss to the community.

Elaine Hoover, owner of Foothill Saddlery, a tack shop near Hansen Dam, boards her thoroughbred at the center. “Eddie had plans to hold big shows there once everything was settled. It’s already a boon to the area,” Hoover said. “If it goes, you’re going to have a lot of displaced horses. There’s no other boarding place nearby, really.”

Jackie Tatum, general manager for the city parks commissioners, did not return several phone calls this week. But Tom Petrique, a management analyst for the department, said the city is aware of the corps’s recent action and Milligan’s threatened departure.

He could not comment on Milligan’s compensation request.

“The buffer zone we staked out in his parking lot is called an ‘after-the-fact environmental assessment,’ ” said Richard Vaughn, ecologist for the corps’s Los Angeles district. “It’s usually not done this way.”

Environmental studies generally are completed before development takes place on federally owned land, Vaughn said. But, corps officials said, Milligan so rapidly developed the site that the all studies were not completed before the facility was up and operating.

No one, including Ted Carr, director of operations for the corps Los Angeles unit, disputes the work and dedication Milligan has put into the center.

“He’s created a well-maintained, fantastic facility,” Carr said. “But he’s so aggressively developed it that he proceeded without prior written approval. The law says we have to mitigate whatever is lost during development. . . . The city accepts the buffer zone. It was put out for public comment, and Milligan never commented.”

Carr said that while the zone eats into the parking lot, it won’t stop Milligan from operating. “He might have to have some remote satellite parking,” Carr said. “This is nothing new, though.”

But some, including Rose Castaneda, a former aid to Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) were surprised by the corps’ recent action, which comes one year after a truce of sorts was reached between Milligan and the corps. In the past the Milligan and corps have sparred over similar issues of development versus land preservation.

“I thought we had everything taken care of,” said Castaneda, who on Berman’s behalf earlier had arranged a meeting between the corps and Milligan. “Eddie has bent over backward to comply. I can’t explain this recent action.”

Neither the corps nor the city could say whether an agreement would be reached with Milligan.

“If that’s the way it’s going to be, then fine. We’ve been here for five years without a contract,” Milligan said. “Horses are the love of my life, but this is more than one human being can take.”