City Distributes Funds for Recreation Projects : Sepulveda: Basin will get new facilities and expanded wildlife habitat, paid for mostly with county Proposition A money.

The Los Angeles City Council, using $5.6 million in county park funds, moved ahead Wednesday to improve recreation facilities in the Sepulveda Basin and to fund a major expansion of a wildlife habitat.

The funds to build new park facilities were part of $27.5 million in county Proposition A funds that the council accepted to fund some long-neglected recreation projects throughout the city.

Most of the Valley projects will be completed by 1996 and paid for entirely with money from Proposition A, a voter-approved measure adopted in 1992 to fund new recreation and park improvements.

However, the largest Valley project is a $4.1-million wildlife habitat expansion project for migratory birds in the Sepulveda Basin, to be funded in part by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the 2,100-acre park.

In fact, most of the improvements in the Valley will take place in the basin, which is undergoing a larger expansion and preservation plan in a partnership between the city and the Corps of Engineers.

The expansion of the wildlife habitat will nearly double the current 108 acres of habitat provided around Balboa Lake, the 11-acre home to 200 bird species, including great blue herons, egrets and red-tailed hawks.

The lakeside area targeted for the expansion is undeveloped open space with little or no vegetation. Under the expansion, the city will plant native vegetation and build walkways and an information kiosk for schoolchildren on field trips, said James Ward, principal maintenance supervisor in the Valley for the city’s Recreation and Parks Department.

The city is using $2 million in Proposition A funds for the expansion, with the balance coming from the Corps of Engineers.

Another $810,000 will be spent to build two cricket fields on four acres of undeveloped land near the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant. The fields are expected to be used by the Southern California Cricket Assn., which was recently displaced from its regular fields in Griffith Park, park officials said.

The council also accepted $765,000 for new landscaping and improvements around the Balboa Recreation Center, which was built two years ago without surrounding landscaping, Ward said.

The money will pay to install an irrigation system and to rewire lighting for an adjacent soccer field so that the lights can be controlled from within the recreation center, he said.

“It’s a face lift of Balboa Park,” Ward said.

The recreation center has been in dire need of landscaping, said Karen Constine, chief of staff for Councilwoman Laura Chick, who represents the area. “It’s going to really help the park,” she said.

The rest of the funds will be used as follows:

* $675,000 to pave a dirt parking lot adjacent to four softball diamonds at the Hjelte Sports Center in the Sepulveda Basin and build two diamonds with lighting and a meeting room for the players.

* $500,000 to restore an outdoor amphitheater at Lanark Recreation Center in Canoga Park that lacks lighting and electrical outlets. The money will also pay to enlarge a parking lot, add park lighting and improve the irrigation system at the park.

* $450,000 to develop picnic areas, parking and landscaping around the entrance to the basin’s Woodley Lake, which Ward said is “very stale and static-looking.”

* $250,000 to buy a small strip of vacant land owned by the county in North Hollywood to be developed as a small park with picnic tables, trees and grass.

* $150,000 to improve the irrigation system, lighting and landscaping at a small nine-acre park in Studio City.