Good news and bad news for Big Tujunga Wash. First, the good news: The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy last week made an offer to buy 350 acres from a developer who wants to build a golf course in the ecologically sensitive wash near Sunland. Now, the bad news: It probably won't make much difference.
Conservancy officials met with representatives of Foothill Golf Development Group, which plans to build the course and a wildflower preserve on 350 acres, and offered an undisclosed amount for the property. Neither side was able to estimate how much the property is worth, but in 1987 owner Cosmo World Corp. paid $2 million and swapped some other land it owned for the site. Grand plans that at one time included a $50-million championship golf complex have been scaled down to a more modest $12-million public course that includes a preserve for the endangered slender-horned spineflower.
Odds of a sale are small. Foothill Golf says it's not interested in selling and plans to proceed with its permit application now pending before the Los Angeles City Council. It should reconsider. Although many Sunland residents want the course and the economic benefits it promises to bring, the wash is the wrong place for the project. As one of the last undeveloped canyons in Southern California, Big Tujunga Wash--although neglected and strewn with litter--is a resource that should not be lost lightly.
