Bolstering the Santa Monicas

Created in 1978, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area bridges Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, extending more than 46 miles from the Hollywood Bowl to Point Mugu in Ventura County. The mountains are home to a stunning variety of native plants and animals, but the patchwork of parklands within it sits in a densely populated metropolis. The 75,000 acres of rolling hills, flowered meadows, mountain trails and pocket parks now in public hands make up almost half of the 153,000 acres within the surrounding mountains parkland zone. This is testament to the perseverance of several public and private agencies.

Congress’ intention in establishing the recreation area was not to gobble up all of that acreage but to preserve enough so that city dwellers would have a place to watch hawks circle and where deer and bobcats would have room to roam. The Santa Monicas do that, even amid some very pricey real estate that makes additions to park holdings slow to achieve and expensive.

So it is good news that the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the agency that acquires land for the park, is on the verge of buying an unusual 326-acre parcel. Located above Woodland Hills south of Ventura Boulevard near Topanga State Park, the land, currently owned by a Florida-based development company, is “the last piece of rural Los Angeles,” according to Joseph T. Edmiston, head of the conservancy. Money from Proposition 12, the $2.1-billion statewide park bond that voters passed in March, is making the difference here. The conservancy, which has begged for funds in recent years, will get $35 million from the bond, $17.5 million of that this year.

An equal challenge in the Santa Monicas has been managing development on private land. More than half of the acreage within the mountains area is still in private hands and will remain so, which requires local governments to start enforcing reasonable limits on new housing tracts on steep and often unstable hillsides. For 20 years, L.A. County supervisors have repeatedly eased density limits on mountain subdivisions in fire- and flood-prone areas.

Next week the supervisors will consider a new plan for about 32 acres in unincorporated mountain areas adjacent to Calabasas, Agoura Hills and Hidden Hills. The stricter density limits in this North Area Plan, the outgrowth of a lengthy community process, would ease pressure on local sewage treatment facilities and water supplies and protect fragile mountain habitats. Though the plan is not perfect it represents a welcome improvement.