SUNLAND : Hearing on Big Tujunga Golf Course Postponed

The Los Angeles Planning Commission has postponed until Oct. 22 a hearing on a controversial proposal to build a private 18-hole golf club in the environmentally sensitive Big Tujunga Wash. It had been set for Oct. 8.

Commission Secretary Ramona Haro said the commissioners also are considering holding the hearing at the Lake View Terrace Recreation Center, near Sunland, where the golf project is planned. Usually the commission holds San Fernando Valley hearings at the Van Nuys Woman’s Club.

Proponents, including local business leaders, said that the developer--Cosmo World Inc., owned by Japanese businessman Minoru Isutani--will provide improvements that will protect local homeowners from flooding and that the club will clear the wash of trash and transients and provide employment opportunities.

But environmentalists and some homeowner activists contend that the project would ruin an area that is officially identified as an “ecologically important area” on the city’s own master plan and is home to at least one endangered species of wildflower.