Chevron to Sell State 3,000 Acres in Heart of Woodlands : Parkland: Conservancy, with help from Santa Clarita, will purchase land for $4.9 million. ‘Drop-dead beautiful’ area is expected to be open for picnicking and hiking within weeks.

In one of the largest parkland deals in recent Southern California history, Chevron Corp. has agreed to sell the state more than 3,000 acres of lush meadows, dense woodlands and stream-cut canyons in the heart of the proposed Santa Clarita Woodlands Park.

In an agreement to be announced Monday, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy will acquire the 3,035-acre tract for $4.9 million, with help from the city of Santa Clarita. The property will combine with nearby holdings to form a nearly 6,000-acre chain of public wildlands on the northern slope of the Santa Susana Mountains.

The Chevron property, owned by the oil giant for more than a century, is west of the Golden State Freeway and the Old Road and includes portions of several canyons.

Described by one conservancy official as “drop-dead beautiful countryside,” the tract features year-round streams, a 25-foot waterfall, unusually dense stands of hardwood and coniferous trees, the site of the state’s first commercial oil well, and remnants of the ghost town of Mentryville.

The area has been under consideration as a future state park, but because of funding constraints, there are no plans to develop or manage it as a state park unit. However, conservancy officials said they expect to open the property to hiking and picnicking in a matter of weeks.

“It’s an extraordinary opportunity to protect for perpetuity a natural asset in the heart of one of California’s most densely populated regions,” said state Resources Secretary Douglas P. Wheeler.

“It is environmentally quite significant, and it represents a significant partnership between the conservancy and a major corporate landowner in California. They don’t happen like this every day,” Wheeler said.

Wally Fassler, a regional vice president for Chevron, called the deal “a great opportunity for the . . . general public because it will take a significant amount of land and preserve it for all sorts of recreational uses.”

But the complex deal has a crucial catch: The financially strapped conservancy must pay $2.45 million, or half the money now, and pay the other half within five years or risk losing the property.

Under the deal worked out among officials of Chevron, the conservancy and the city of Santa Clarita, the city would provide most of the down payment. It would do so by purchasing for $2 million a 53-acre property owned by the conservancy.

The conservancy would use the money for most of the down payment to Chevron. The rest would come from funds earmarked for the Santa Clarita Woodlands in Proposition A, the Los Angeles County parks bond act approved by voters in 1992.

The Santa Clarita City Council could approve the deal Tuesday. “They have good interest in it,” City Manager George Caravalho said.

The most likely source for the second installment of $2.45 million would be a state parks bond act if voters approve one in the next three or four years. Such bond measures have financed most conservancy purchases during the past decade, although voters at times have spurned park bond proposals, including one in June.

The acquisition would be the largest in the 15-year history of the conservancy, a state agency that acquires parks and trails in the Santa Monica Mountains and the Rim of the Valley Corridor, which includes the Santa Susanas and nearby hills and mountains.

Chevron officials say their property is worth $7.3 million, and are expected to seek tax credits for a below-market sale. The deal is being packaged as a gift of 851 acres in one of the canyons, Pico Canyon, and sale of 2,184 acres for $4.9 million.

Experts say the site boasts unusually dense and diverse forests that are perhaps more typical of Northern California, due perhaps to a high water table or some unique genetic component. Groves of big-cone Douglas fir, California walnut, and California bay are found on the property, along with oak woodlands and flowering ash trees up to 60 feet tall.

“The Santa Susana Mountains have a number of unique or near-unique vegetation types I have not seen elsewhere in the state,” wrote Todd Keeler-Wolf, a senior ecologist with the state Department of Fish and Game’s Natural Diversity Database, after a visit to the area.

“Perhaps the most unusual single feature of the area is its diverse hardwood forests and woodlands. Taken as a whole, they represent a blend of Northern and Southern California woodlands.”

Chevron and conservancy officials first discussed the acquisition about 1990, but talks did not begin in earnest until this January.

The deal follows several other strategic purchases in the area. Previously, the conservancy acquired the Rivendale site and other tracts to block landfill development in Towsley Canyon, which the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts were considering for a big trash dump.

The conservancy also acquired a key strip of land between The Old Road and Chevron’s holdings--in part to limit Chevron’s development options.

The conservancy paid a premium price--$5.2 million--for the 22-acre gateway to the Chevron land, knowing that the narrow easement would not accommodate a major access road, officials said.

“It makes the remainder of the property much less expensive because the really remunerative development options have been taken away,” said Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the conservancy.

Times correspondent Doug Alger contributed to this story.

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New Parkland The Chevron Corp. has agreed to sell 3,035 acres to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for $4.9 million. The land would be the centerpiece of a proposed Santa Clarita Woodlands Park.