City Delays Vote on Big Tujunga Golf Course

A Los Angeles City Council vote on a controversial golf course development in the Big Tujunga Wash was postponed Tuesday when the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy said it wanted to make an offer on the property.

Conservancy officials said they have access to up to $19 million in park bond funding to buy the environmentally sensitive 352-acre golf course site. The conservancy meets next week to vote on an offer.

Although representatives for the golf course developer agreed to the two-week delay, they said they are not interested in selling the property.

“Our position is unchanged,” said Mark Armbruster, a representative for Foothill Golf Development Group. “The land is not for sale.”

But council members supported the delay, saying they wanted to make sure that every opportunity to save the wash from development was fully considered.

The project had appeared on track for final approval because it has been supported by the city’s Planning Commission and Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the Big Tujunga area.

In fact, to overturn the Planning Commission’s approval, the council would need at least 10 votes in opposition to the project.

Still, some council members said the fate of the project remains unclear.

“Anything could happen,” Councilman Mike Feuer said after the vote.

One reason for the uncertainty is that a powerful labor union is opposed to the project because the original developer of the golf course, Kajima International, is involved in a prolonged labor dispute over its New Otani Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Councilman Richard Alarcon said he believes the union opposition has influenced some council members to oppose the project.

“Before the union got involved, I didn’t think we could have had enough numbers to vote against this,” he said. Armbruster said that Kajima dropped out of the project last year. The only connection Kajima has with the project, he said, is a lien it placed on the golf course site due to a financial dispute with the owners of the property, Cosmo World.

Nonetheless, union members and opponents packed the council chambers, waving orange signs bearing the name Kajima with a bar through it and the words “Golf Course NO!”

“Kajima continues to refuse to take responsibility for firing workers at the New Otani Hotel,” said Mona Elena Durazo, a representative of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union.

Armbruster suggested that the union may be trying to kill the golf project to make it harder for Kajima to collect its lien.

Aside from the labor dispute, the focus of the debate was on the environmental impact of the project, which is opposed by many environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society and the California Department of Fish and Game.

Several environmentalists said the project would ruin one of the last remaining habitats for the endangered slender-horn spineflower.

Others objected to the project because it is within a flood plain and could be washed away in a massive deluge.

“This place gets inundated from time to time, bringing down boulders the size of your chairs,” said William Eick, an attorney for the Small Wilderness Area Preservation.

Councilman Nate Holden agreed, saying, “Imagine if there was a flood. You would have to take a boat from hole to hole.”

But Wachs argued that the golf course site is private property and that the city could be sued for keeping the landowner from getting a financial benefit from the property.

In addition, he said the golf course project has been modified to create “one of the most environmentally sensitive projects I’ve ever seen.”

The project was also supported by several homeowner and business associations near the wash, most of whom argued that the development is likely to reduce problems of littering and vandalism in the area.

Several nearby homeowners also criticized the union protesters for getting involved in what they call a local land issue.

“They are holding up “No golf” signs and they don’t even know where Big Tujunga Wash is,” said Royan Herman, who lives near the wash.

Still, several council members supported the delay, saying the council needs to examine every alternative to save the wash.

“A couple of weeks is not too much to ask,” Alarcon said.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy board is scheduled to meet July 14 to consider a motion to make an offer on the Big Tujunga Wash property. The council will reconsider the golf development July 22.

Paul Edelman, a staff ecologist with the conservancy, said the group has access to up to $12 million from Proposition A, a 1992 voter-approved bond measure to provide parks and open space. He said the conservancy can also tap up to $7 million from Proposition 204, another voter-approved bond measure to finance a variety of water cleanup projects throughout the state.

But Edelman said the conservancy could not realistically spend all of that money on the Big Tujunga Wash without facing the wrath of lawmakers and residents who are expecting other open-space projects elsewhere in the county.