State to Buy Topanga Canyon Coastal Acreage for Parkland

The California Department of Parks and Recreation is poised to purchase 1,659 acres in lower Topanga Canyon, in a $43-million deal designed to restore coastal wetlands and provide the first uninterrupted hiking trail from the San Fernando Valley to the ocean.

Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature have set aside money to buy the new parkland. The budget includes an extra $5 million to help relocate 47 households and as many as 13 businesses at the foot of the property along Pacific Coast Highway.

“The governor wants parks close to where people live. This is it,” said Rusty Areias, state parks director. “It’s a fabulous wildlife corridor. And you will be able to walk from the San Fernando Valley to the beach and never cross a road.”

Although state parks officials have coveted the property since the 1970s, this is the first time they have been able to find a willing seller and come up with enough cash to complete the sale. The bulk of the money comes from Proposition 12 bonds for state parks.

State officials acquired a slender slice of the property on the ocean-side of Pacific Coast Highway through eminent domain and turned it into Topanga State Beach in the 1960s.

This larger parcel, being bought from the same company, LAACO Ltd., which owns the L.A. Athletic Club, will connect the public beach with Topanga State Park.

The deal is being brokered by the American Land Conservancy, a nonprofit group that helps preserve open space for recreation and wildlife habitat. All parties hope to close the deal on July 13, but it may be delayed by a couple of weeks for technical reasons.

The imminent sale is enormously satisfying to Harriet Burgess, president of the conservancy. She has spent 11 years as an on-again, off-again deal maker to preserve the land from future development.

“It’s pretty exciting,” she said. “Most of this land is really wilderness.”

The parcel stretches far up the rugged canyon, which is bisected by Topanga Canyon Boulevard. Reaching from ridge to ridge, the land’s muted gray-green coastal sage scrub blends into the deeper green of higher-elevation chaparral.

Several Endangered Species Live in Area

Topanga Creek runs through miles of largely undisturbed woodland, the habitat of rare red-legged frogs, and a variety of other species threatened with extinction.

Biologists a few years ago found a steelhead trout in the stream. The endangered fish, which lives in the ocean and swims upstream to spawn, was long thought to have vanished from waterways south of Malibu Creek.

Last week, biologists found another rare fish, the tidewater goby, in Topanga Lagoon. The goby, which was reintroduced to Malibu Lagoon up the coast, is suspected of migrating with last winter’s storm-water runoff to its new home in the brackish waters of Topanga Lagoon.

Topanga Creek is one of the few remaining free-flowing streams in Southern California. Although it is the third largest source of fresh water pouring into Santa Monica Bay, it has no storm drain disgorging urban runoff.

Yet the relatively clean water upstream becomes laden with bacteria farther downstream when it passes by houses equipped with septic tanks along the creek in an area that used to be wetlands.

As a result, the coastal waters around Topanga Beach, a popular surfing spot, are among the most polluted in Santa Monica Bay. Bacterial pollution, suspected to be leaching from septic tanks, is particularly troublesome after rainstorms that engorge the creek and saturate the wetlands.

State park officials have begun to study what kind of restoration will be needed. Besides digging out septic tanks and bulldozing many or all of the houses, state officials are considering removing thousands of tons of dirt that was dumped in the wetlands when Pacific Coast Highway was constructed.

“Ideally, we would like to open all of this up, from ridge to ridge,” said Russ Guiney, superintendent of 31 parks in Los Angeles County and surrounding areas.

Such an effort would require the California Department of Transportation to expand the bridge that crosses Topanga Creek.

Environmentalists Laud State Parks’ Plans

“There are gobs of money available to do such things,” Areias said.

Environmentalist are delighted with the state’s plans for lower Topanga Canyon.

“This is an oasis surrounded by rampant development,” said Susan Jordan, a board member of the League for Coastal Protection. “By preserving this, it gets us back to what California was and back to the reason people love California.”

The only friction comes from the tenants, who want long-term leases or, at a minimum, to stay until park officials have worked out long-range plans for the parkland.

“It takes them years to do a permanent general plan,” said Frank Angel, an attorney representing the tenants. “Why should this area be boarded up in the meantime?”

Fred G. Zepeda, a vice president of LAACO, estimated that about 100 people live in 47 houses along the creek or on and around the fill that was piled onto the wetlands.

Many have lived in the rental housing for decades, paying below-market rent in exchange for doing all of their own maintenance. “That has always been the trade-off,” Zepeda said. Average rent runs about $850 a month for a small house.

But the colony of artists, actors, screenwriters, filmmakers and retirees will soon come to an end. All tenants have been given notice that they must relocate after the purchase is complete.

Superintendent Guiney expects all residents to be out within nine to 12 months.

Park officials met with residents during a testy 3 1/2-hour session last week to explain relocation benefits, which include moving expenses and rent subsidies for up to 3 1/2 years for “comparable housing.”

Some tenants could walk away with $50,000 or more for a down payment on a replacement home or spend it over a span of 42 months to help make higher rental payments for comparable homes, said Barry McDaniel, vice president of Pacific Relocation Consultants.

The tenants’ attorney said it will be difficult to find comparable dwellings in an area known for multimillion-dollar homes. Under state rules, “every reasonable effort” must be made to relocate people in or near their existing neighborhood.

“If comparable replacement housing cannot be found, the best solution is long-term leases so these people are not being kicked out overnight,” Angel said.

Most or all of the businesses on the land are likely to be relocated, too. The strip of businesses along Pacific Coast Highway includes the Reel Inn Fresh Fish Market and Restaurant, the Malibu Feed Bin, Topanga Ranch Motel, Wylie’s Bait and Tackle and Oasis Furniture.

Their fate has not been decided. State parks often include concessions valuable to visitors, Guiney said. “We might conclude that some of them might stay.” Park officials expect to have an answer within six months.

A public hearing on the lower Topanga Canyon purchase is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday at Topanga Elementary School, 141 N. Topanga Blvd.

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From the Valley to the Sea

The state Department of Parks and Recreation is in the process of buying 1,659 acres in lower Topanga Canyon to create a hiking and wildlife corridor stretching from the mountains to the sea. The $43-million purchase would link Topanga State Park with Topanga State Beach.

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Source: National Park Service