Delay Sought : Game Warden Fears Intrusion of Golf Course

The state Department of Fish and Game has called for a delay in city approval of any development in the Big Tujunga Wash until a comprehensive wildlife management plan for the area is completed.

The department’s target is a $20-million tournament-caliber golf course proposed by the Japanese firm Cosmo World Corp., said Diane Hermans, state game warden. It is the only project now under consideration for the flood plain, which lies north of the Foothill Freeway in Lake View Terrace.

“We really need to see the whole picture instead of looking at little pieces,” Hermans said Monday night at a community meeting in Lake View Terrace.

Los Angeles city planners said they will ask Cosmo World to consider the wildlife plan in its environmental impact report on the golf course. The report is part of the information that the city Planning Commission will consider before recommending to the City Council whether to approve or deny the project.

“We say, prior to permits for any grading, they must supply evidence of a mitigation plan to the satisfaction of Fish and Game,” said Ruby Ann Justis, coordinator of the golf course project for the city Planning Department.

The state is concerned about protection of dwindling Southern California wetlands, Hermans said, and with two endangered species: a plant growing there and a bird sighted near the wash.

Justis said the city Planning Commission will have to balance such concerns against the merits of a golf course.

“This particular project is one of the best, compared to what I have seen being proposed for that wash,” Justis said. “Golfers would have an opportunity to move out of the way in a flood. . . . With houses, the potential for loss is greater.”

Earlier proposals for the wash included a private communication firm’s putting 15 television satellite dishes there; making the site a permanent home for the San Fernando Valley Fair; and filling it with 500 houses, an industrial park and commercial buildings.

Richard Babbitt, corporate adviser at Cosmo World, said the firm is confident that it can address any of the state’s environmental concerns through its environmental impact report, which should be completed in early 1989, and the design of the project.

Among the mitigating measures listed in drafts of the environmental report, submitted to the city this fall, are a $3-million drainage system and islands of natural flora in two places where the endangered slender-horned spineflower grows.

The endangered bird, least Bell’s vireo, has been sighted near Hansen Dam, southwest of the proposed golf course, Hermans said. The Fish and Game Department has asked Cosmo World to determine whether the bird also frequents the 367 acres intended for the golf course and drainage system, she said.

People who live near the wash had mixed reactions to the state department’s requests.

“A lot of people moved here because they like to live with nature, and now it’s all disappearing,” said Barbara Hubbard, who moved to Lake View Terrace from Hollywood 3 years ago.

But Ralph Burns, who has lived in Lake View Terrace 25 years, said: “I just go wild thinking that something beautiful like that could be ruined because of the interests of a few people with horses or because of a few squirrels,” Burns said.

The private course, first proposed in July, 1987, would cover 200 acres of the wash and include a clubhouse and practice area, Babbitt said.