OPPONENTS TEED OFF BY GOLF COURSE PLAN; DEVELOPER WANTS TO BUILD IN BIG TUJUNGA WASH.

Byline: Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writer

Bill Eick stands on a ridge overlooking the Big Tujunga Wash, where a developer hopes to build a championship golf course. He chatters away freely, but he's careful where he steps.

``I was told not to set foot on the property,'' he explains.

Not surprising, considering that Eick, 48, is one of the chief antagonists of the Foothills Golf Development Group, which wants to dump 500,000 cubic yards of fill into the wash to build a $15 million public golf course.

Eick is a probate attorney during the day, but in his spare time, he is a thorn in the developer's side, talking to students, neighbors and reporters about why he thinks it's a bad idea to build a golf course in a flood plain.

``Eventually, Mother Nature will end up washing the entire golf course away, just like it did in Northern California this year, and it did on the Mississippi River several years ago,'' said Eick, who lives in Shadow Hills, just west of the proposed links.

``I just hope the taxpayers of the state of California don't end up paying for the disaster relief.''

The developers say critics like Eick are not being realistic and that the golf course will actually do more good than harm for the environment.

Eick plans to speak out against the project Tuesday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles at a public hearing sponsored by the City Council's Planning and Land-Use Management Committee.

The project, which has had an up-and-down history dating to the 1980s, got a unanimous go-ahead from the city Planning Commission last year.

Now, it goes on to the land-use committee, whose three members - council members Hal Bernson, Laura Chick and Mark Ridley-Thomas - must recommend to the full City Council whether to accept or reject the golf course.

Eick will have plenty of company at Tuesday's meeting.

Bill Speedie, a legislative assistant for the committee, said that an unusually large number of groups are opposing the project.

In addition to Eick's Small Wilderness Area Preservation, seven other groups have filed appeals. They include the state Department of Fish and Game, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, and local chapters of the Sierra Club and Audubon Society.

Much of the opposition centers around complaints that the golf course would threaten the largest remaining portion of undisturbed, native flood plain in the Los Angeles River watershed.

The wash is ``kind of a throwback to the primeval land form of the original landscape. It's a soul-nurturing, natural realm,'' said Dick Hingson, conservation coordinator for the Los Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club.

State officials worry that the golf course will harm rare and endangered species that make their home in the Tujunga Wash, among them the slender-horned spineflower, the cactus wren and the San Diego horned lizard.

``The alluvial fan sage scrub is one of the largest stands remaining in Southern California. It's a very sensitive habitat,'' said Lilia Martinez, a Department of Fish and Game environmental specialist.

Though not among the appellants, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers isn't keen on the project. The federal agency warns that even mild to moderate storm flows would erode the golf course and realign the wash's active channel.

But Mark Armbruster, a lobbyist and legal counsel for the project, insists that the flood danger and the environmental risks are overstated.

He said the company is proposing to set aside 192 acres as a permanent open space preserve to protect endangered species.

``We look at this as a win-win situation - a beautiful project that the community can use,'' Armbruster said.

As for the spineflower, project planner Dwight Steinert said it would be better off with the golf course. He said the endangered species is threatened by non-native grasses which creep closer and closer every year. ``The golf course will manage those non-native grasses so the spineflower can regenerate yearly,'' Steinert said.

Despite the number of groups appealing the project, backers insist that the project enjoys broad community support.

Besides, Armbruster said, ``This is private property, and there are development rights.''

Some neighbors believe that the golf course would be a boon for the economically depressed area.

``Our little town needs more employment for the high schoolers and more businesses,'' said Sunland mother Sylvia Yslas.

Still, neighborhood support is hard to gauge. Last year, the Shadow Hills Property Owners Association voted 114-39 against the project, said association President Jennie Klein.

The golf course would occupy 160 acres of a 352-acre parcel owned by the Cosmo World Corp. and leased to Foothills Golf Development Group.

Cosmo World's chief executive officer is Minoru Isutani, an avid Japanese golfer who made his name in this country buying big-name courses such as Pebble Beach.

After acquiring the wash property around 1986, Cosmo World first proposed a bigger and more elite private course suitable for tournament play, to be called the Los Angeles International Golf Club.

But in 1994, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers scuttled the project because of the risk to the spineflower.

Seeking to salvage the project, it was reduced significantly in size and switched from private to public.

Under the new configuration, the project didn't encroach on flood channels and no longer needed approval from the Army Corps of Engineers.

The decision on whether or not to support the project will be a difficult one for Councilman Joel Wachs, in whose district the wash is located.

``It can be the best thing or the worst thing that ever happened in that community,'' said Wachs' aide Arlene DeSanctis.

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Photo

PHOTO Bill Eick believes storm runoff in the Big Tujunga Wash would someday destroy a golf course proposed here.

John McCoy/Daily News