Ventura Supervisor Jeopardizes Hope Land Swap : Development: The victory of a slow-growth candidate in Ventura County threatens a subdivision’s approval. It also could prevent the proposed deal with the Park Service.

VENTURA —  The results of a Ventura County election cast doubt on the future of a complex land swap between Bob Hope and the National Park Service that would turn 5,700 acres of the comic’s mountain property in Ventura and Los Angeles counties into parkland.

The election of a new slow-growth member to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors reduced the chance the board will approve the subdivision of Hope’s Jordan Ranch for a 750-house project, Supervisor John K. Flynn said Wednesday. That would veto the key provision on which the land swap depends.

Last week’s upset election of slow-growth advocate Maria VanderKolk appears to have provided the swing vote against the project, Flynn said. Three of the five county supervisors who are scheduled to review the project in January now have either pledged to vote against it or have voted against it in the past.

“The chances of it passing are slim. If I were the developer, I would feel very uncomfortable right now,” Flynn said.

“It’s that election and the fact that two supervisors voted against going ahead with the environmental impact report in the first place,” Flynn said.

Flynn and Supervisor Susan K. Lacey voted last July not to allow developers to study the environmental effects of the proposal and of an adjacent project at the Ahmanson Ranch. Denial would have killed the projects, but the study was approved 3 to 2 by the board.

Now, however, Supervisor Madge L. Schaefer, who voted for the study, has been defeated by VanderKolk, whose opposition to development of Jordan Ranch was the centerpiece of her campaign. VanderKolk takes office in January, in time for hearings on the proposal.

Supervisor Maggie Erickson, a potential fourth vote against the project, has said that she has grave concerns about it.

Erickson would have rejected the project last year, she said Wednesday, if representatives of the state-funded Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy had not supported it as a way to place thousands of acres owned by Hope into public use.

“The only reason I didn’t turn it down had to do with land going into the conservancy,” she said. “The information I had was that environmentalists were saying this is important enough to allow the development. Now, there is a great division of opinion by people involved with the parks about this project.”

Under the land-swap proposal, the National Park Service would exchange 59 acres needed for an access road to the Jordan subdivision for 1,100 acres of the 2,308-acre ranch. In addition, Hope is donating and selling 4,600 acres in the Santa Monica and Santa Susana mountains to park agencies for a below-market $10 million.

The land swap plan has split the environmental community. It is described by supporters, including the Sierra Club’s Southern California Conservation Committee and the conservancy, as the best deal possible considering the shortage of public money to buy parklands.

But it has been denounced by critics--including the Wilderness Society--who say that the Jordan Ranch should be preserved as open space because it is within the boundaries of a national recreation area.

Hope agreed Wednesday to cut his price for the lands in half--to $10 million--in a deal negotiated by Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), a leading proponent of preserving open space in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Beilenson’s support significantly enhances the deal’s prospects for funding by Congress and approval by the Park Service, backers and opponents said.

It followed endorsements of the swap by Sen. Pete Wilson, the California Republican gubernatorial nominee, and Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City). A spokesman for state Sen. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara) confirmed Thursday that the lawmaker also supports the swap.

Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) opposes it.

Beilenson said he negotiated the reduced price with Peter Kyros, general partner of Potomac Investment Associates, which has an option on Jordan Ranch. Beilenson said he proposed the 50% reduction in price, which Kyros worked out with Hope.

The congressman said, however, that the entire deal depends on the County Board of Supervisors approving development at the ranch.

“Everything depends on the developers being able to develop Jordan,” Beilenson said. He cited VanderKolk’s victory as a possible setback to the project.

Park Service officials said Thursday that they are monitoring the supervisors’ deliberations and do not intend to enter into a final agreement on the land swap until the county board votes on the Jordan project.

“We probably will not make our final decision on whether the exchange is in the public’s best interest until the county has had its Board of Supervisors hearings on it and has either denied or proceeded with its conceptual approval,” said David E. Gackenbach, superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Fred Maas, vice president for Potomac Investment, refused to say that denial by the supervisors would kill the land swap. He did say that the deal would be “much less attractive if we don’t have a development approved on Jordan Ranch.”

If the land swap falls through, Potomac’s current access road is wide enough to allow construction of 28 luxury houses on 80-acre parcels and a golf course, he said. No county zoning change would be needed, he said.

Dividing the property into 80-acre parcels would mean that none of it would be preserved as parkland, he said.

Maas said he did not know if VanderKolk’s stunning upset of Schaefer had prompted Hope to agree to a cut in price. But VanderKolk said Thursday that “the timing is too much of a coincidence” for her win not to have been a factor.

“They are realizing that they have a bigger problem than they thought,” the supervisor-elect said.

Erickson said she would try not to let Hope’s sweetened deal be a part of her deliberations.

“I’ve tried all along not to let that be part of my decision,” she said. “My decision has to be based on its impact on Ventura County. If it harms the environment, then I won’t support it.”

Flynn said he voted against further study of the project last year because, “I was trying to be fair to the property owner. I said, ‘There are some major problems here and that I don’t think any mitigation measures can overcome them.’ ”

Maas said as the heat of the VanderKolk campaign subsides he is hopeful that the board will see things Hope’s way.

“We want to take things one day, one week, one month at a time. We’ve got a long time yet before there’s an ultimate vote by the Board of Supervisors.”

Times staff writer Alan C. Miller, in Washington, contributed to this story.