Senate Delays Hope Land Swap Hearing

A Senate hearing at which Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) had vowed to seek to block the exchange of federal land in Cheeseboro Canyon for property owned by entertainer Bob Hope was postponed Monday.

Cranston had announced that he would ask the interior subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee to prohibit the use of federal funds for the controversial land swap. Federal money is needed for an environmental review of the exchange.

The proposal calls for the National Park Service to give developers 59 acres in Cheeseboro Canyon that they need for an access road in exchange for about 1,100 acres of the nearby Jordan Ranch in eastern Ventura County. The developers, who hold an option on the property owned by Hope, are seeking to build a golf course and 750 houses on the remaining 1,208 acres of the Jordan Ranch.

In addition, Hope’s sale to parks agencies of another 4,600 acres in the Santa Monica and Santa Susana mountains for $20 million--reportedly less than he could get from developers--is contingent on approval of the swap.

Cranston has maintained that “instead of permitting the land exchange . . . the Park Service should be seeking to acquire” the Jordan Ranch property to protect it from development.