Chevron to Sell 3,000 Acres in Santa Susanas

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 wild lands 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 Rice, East, Wiley, Leaming, Towsley and Pico canyons.

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Described by one conservancy official as “drop-dead beautiful countryside,” the tract features year-round streams and 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.

“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 . . . a very big deal in every aspect of that phrase,” Wheeler said. “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.”

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.”

“One of the important things about the Santa Clarita Woodlands is no one lives in the Santa Clarita Woodlands,” said Don Mullally, an ecologist and author of research papers on the site’s vegetation.

“This is all wilderness,” Mullally said. And with flat areas for walking and picnicking, as well as steep slopes for more ambitious hikers, “this is the kind of park (that) is for everybody.”

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 one of the conservancy’s nearby properties: the 53-acre Rivendale tract along The Old Road near the mouth of Towsley Canyon.

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 county parks bond act approved by voters in 1992.

The Santa Clarita City Council could approve the deal as early as 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 future parks bond act, should 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 last June.

Nonetheless, conservancy and Chevron officials voiced confidence that the balance of the money will be found. “I’m not worried about that,” Fassler said.

In terms of acreage, 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.

The conservancy agreed in 1992 to accept a larger gift of 6,000 acres from developers of the Ritter Ranch project in the Antelope Valley. However, the donation has been delayed by legal challenges to the huge development.

Chevron officials say their property is worth $7.3 million, and are expected to seek tax credit for a below-market sale. The deal is being packaged as a gift of 851 acres in 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 Data Base, 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.”

Noting that flowering ash typically appears as a large shrub, Keeler-Wolf wrote: “Prior to my visit to the Santa Susana Mountains, I had never seen this species as a tree.”

The area has been under consideration as a future state park, but due to funding constraints there are no immediate 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.

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

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 previously 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 this 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.

But Fassler, the Chevron vice president, discounted this as a factor in the decision to sell.

The property “is pretty mountainous,” and “would cost a fortune to try to develop” as a housing tract, Fassler said.

“We were looking for a good organization that could utilize not only the real estate, but take advantage of those historical landmarks,” he said. “We’re not very well prepared to deal with those kinds of things. . . . The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is a great organization with a great track record.”

Conservancy officials said the deal should not interfere with another top-priority purchase: the acquisition of Soka University’s scenic holdings in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The conservancy has won a court ruling allowing it to take the Soka land by eminent domain for use as a visitor and activity center for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. It remains for a jury to decide how much the conservancy must pay.

The conservancy has set aside $20 million for the Soka purchase. However, agency officials had considered the possibility of selling the Rivendale tract to raise additional funds if $20 million is not enough to compensate Soka. The Chevron deal eliminates Rivendale as a source of extra financing for Soka.

Correspondent Douglas Alger also contributed to this story.

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Chevron Land Sale

Map depicts 3,035-acre Chevron Corp. property that will be sold to Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for $4.9 million-acreage-wise, the largest single acquisition in the history of the conservancy. The property is the centerpiece of Santa Clarita Woodlands park. Adjacent parkland holdings are also shown.

Ownerships

Chevron Corp, 3,035 acres.

Lands in East and Bee Canyons to be transferred by Browning-Ferris Industries to Los Angeles County as condition of Sunshine Canyon landfill expansion, 906 acres.

Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy holdings in Towsley Canyon, 5224 acres.

U.S. Bureau of Land Management parcels, about 600 acres.

O’Melveny Park, owned by city of Los Angeles, 694.5 acres.

Source: Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy