Doing the Right Thing for the Wrong Reasons

The Los Angeles City Council was at its best and its worst last week as it rejected plans to build a golf course in the Big Tujunga Wash flood plain. Tuesday’s surprise vote scuttled controversial plans to construct the 18-hole public course in an environmentally sensitive part of the wash near Sunland. Since it was first proposed 10 years ago, the course’s fatal flaw has been what its designers consider its biggest draw: location. Plainly put, no golf course belongs in the Big Tujunga Wash--a dramatic and endangered canyon that regularly floods with destructive force. Nonetheless, the council took a big risk with public money by sending the course’s developer away empty-handed.

The crowds that packed City Hall had barely made it outside before the developer vowed to sue the city for depriving him and the land’s owner of “economically viable” use of the property. Those two words--economically viable--are critical because they are the underpinnings of current case law in an area known as regulatory takings. A regulatory taking occurs when government makes the rules on a piece of private property so restrictive that the land effectively becomes worthless. Whether that occurred in the Big Tujunga Wash is, obviously, not so clear. Attorneys on both sides cite abundant case law to justify their positions, but some city lawyers grumble privately that the council is skating on thin legal ice.

While the council can probably defend itself in a costly and complicated inverse condemnation case, it may have a tougher time defending the politicking that ultimately killed the project. Despite unanimous approvals from the city’s Planning Commission and the council’s own Planning and Land-Use Management Committee, council members voted 10 to 4 to reject the current proposal for a golf course and wildlife preserve on the 350 acres owned by Cosmo World Corp. and leased by Foothill Golf Development Group. The plan was scaled down considerably from earlier efforts to build a championship golf complex. By rejecting the project, the council broke with a long tradition of deferring on land-use issues to the council member in whose district a project lies.

In this case, Councilman Joel Wachs had negotiated a deal that set aside most of the property as open space. But many on the council fiercely opposed the golf course. Why? Some had legitimate concerns over its environmental consequences. But others voted the golf course down for the less lofty reason that organized labor opposed the project. That creates at least the impression of legislative fiat. Would the vote have turned out the same if unions had supported the project? Probably not. Councilman Hal Bernson correctly pointed out before the vote that the council should concern itself only with the land-use issues at hand. Yes, the wash is the wrong place for a golf course. But the plan rejected Tuesday had passed muster at every level of the city’s professional planning bureaucracy. Was it perfect? No. But the council needed some strong, substantive reasons for rejecting it--and union opposition fails the test.

The council is guilty in this case of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The Times has opposed development of the course in the wash on environmental grounds, believing that sometimes land is worth preserving for its own sake. But that preservation cannot come solely at the expense of a private landowner. That’s why The Times has urged Cosmo World and Foothill to sell the land to a parks agency such as the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Failing that, Cosmo and Foothill deserved to have the applicable land-use law applied to their case. It’s not clear that it was.

To its credit, the council left the door open by telling Foothill Golf that it could return with a smaller proposal--say a nine-hole course. Foothill representative Mark Armbruster responded that such a project would lose money, and upon that assertion he built his argument that the council was depriving the company of economically viable use of the land. Councilman Richard Alarcon argued back--and most courts agree with him--that it is not the government’s job to guarantee developers profit.

What next? Foothill and Cosmo can come back yet again with a smaller proposal and see if the council is more receptive. Or they can sue the city. If they win, the city could be forced to reconsider the project or buy the land and, possibly, pay damages. Or Cosmo and Foothill can take the high road and call it quits. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has offered $3.5 million for the land--about $1.5 million more than Cosmo World reportedly paid a decade ago. That’s the scenario The Times favors--a way to preserve the land, minimize the property owners’ losses and save the public money a court fight would cost. Odds are slim that it will happen.