Mountain Parklands Funds Near Approval

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders Wednesday approved spending $13.2 million to help buy two parcels of land in the Santa Monica Mountains long coveted by Southern California hikers, conservationists and park officials.

The money, approved by a Senate-House conference committee, probably would go toward acquisition of the 2,300-acre Jordan Ranch in Ventura County, the 314-acre Paramount Ranch in Agoura or 30 scattered properties along the Backbone Trail from Los Angeles to the Ventura County coast, federal park officials said.

The bill also designates $8 million for Channel Islands National Park off the coast of Santa Barbara.

Proponents said the $12.5 billion Interior Department appropriations bill, for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, is expected to win final approval in the Senate and House by early next week. Although President Bush initially threatened to veto the bill as exceeding his spending recommendations, the White House accepted some compromises that now seem to assure his signature, congressional sources said.

Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), the only Californian among the 27 conference members, said “Californians should be extremely pleased at the level of funding. . . . We didn’t get everything, but overall we were very successful.”

Conferees approved more than $50 million in funding for 19 land-acquisition proposals and fish and wildlife projects in California. The Santa Monica Mountains was the largest; others included the areas of Big Sur, Lake Tahoe, the Sacramento River, San Francisco Bay, the Santa Rosa Mountains and San Bernardino National Forest.

The Santa Monica Mountains money, a compromise between $14 million approved by the House and $12.5 million by the Senate, is to help set aside land for the recreation area established by Congress more than a decade ago.

The national park is made up of a patchwork of parkland and private holdings extending from Griffith Park to Point Mugu. So far, $129 million has been appropriated by Congress to acquire property that otherwise might be developed for residential or commercial use.

All the money comes from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which derives more than 80% of its revenue from offshore oil drilling royalties and is the largest source of money for land acquisition.

“We are delighted!” said Joan Reiss, western regional director of the Wilderness Society. “The Santa Monica Mountains is one of the precious preserves within commuting distance of an enormous number of people. If it goes, the wilderness experience goes with it.”

Belinda Faustinos, deputy director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that buys much of the parkland in the national recreation area, said money would go toward purchase of Jordan Ranch near Thousand Oaks, including China Flat. The ranch is adjacent to existing National Park Service property.

“This is great,” said Dave Gackenbach, superintendent of the national recreation area. “Now we can move further on our acquisition program, focusing mainly on the Jordan and Paramount Ranch properties.”

The National Park Service will decide the details of how the money is to be spent.

Applying the money to the Jordan Ranch purchase, Gackenbach said, would enable the federal government to fulfill its $15.5-million share of a complicated deal under which the Ahmanson Land Co. and developers of comedian Bob Hope’s Jordan Ranch would turn over 10,000 acres of parkland to state and federal parks agencies for $29.5 million.

That deal hinges on two factors: approval by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to build the 3,050-home Ahmanson Ranch project north of Calabasas, and state park agencies providing the remaining $14 million. The Ventura supervisors will consider the project later this year.

Some of the money may also be applied toward purchase of the nearby Paramount Ranch, a top priority that could be lost to foreclosure unless a $17.6-million note is paid on time, according to Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the conservancy.

The 314-acre Paramount Ranch is the former site of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire just north of Mulholland Highway and west of Cornell Road.

Times staff writers Aaron Curtiss and Darryl Kelley contributed to this story.