Hill Canyon Links Plan Gets Mixed Reception : Development: Proposal thrills Thousand Oaks golfers, but not environmentalists.

The fairways would snake around bobcat crossings and bike paths. The first tee would stand near a sometimes-smelly sewage pit. And 70,000 golfers a year would traipse through a remote canyon floor, putting their way through a championship links.

Tentative plans for Hill Canyon recreational facilities, outlined for the first time this week, thrill many Thousand Oaks golfers, but distress some environmentalists.

The 300-acre tract, near Wildwood Regional Park in the Santa Rosa Valley, offers spectacular vistas and pristine wetlands. Yet it also houses the city’s waste-water treatment plant, with its odor-prone sludge pits, and a paved fire road for maintenance vehicles.

At a two-hour workshop Wednesday night, consultants from Irvine-based California Muni Golf said they would be able to build a challenging 18-hole course without disturbing key habitats.

By using existing development, such as the two-mile-long road, they said they could minimize man-made intrusions in the canyon’s craggy beauty. And the city utilities director promised to keep the treatment plant stink-free using new technologies.

“A golf course would enhance the features of this special site,” said consultant Mark Lorge, who promised a public links with “sizzle and drama.”

With this month’s purchase of a former barley field on Broome Ranch in Newbury Park, the city now has another potential site for a public links. Thousand Oaks spent $1 million from its golf course fund to buy part of the 640-acre ranch, and officials expect to recoup that investment through playing fees at a future links.

City officials stressed that they have not committed to a golf course on either site, but plans for Hill Canyon are much further along.

The backcountry tract, surrounded by flower fields and a lemon grove, has one main advantage over Broome Ranch: free water from the nearby treatment plant, workshop participants said. A golf course on the canyon’s floor would also be more unusual--and more exciting--than a set of fairways and greens on the flat plain of Broome Ranch, they said.

“This would be one of the most beautiful things the city has done,” resident Lyle Wray said. “It would be a signature course. People from all over would be driving here to play.”

Despite the anticipated heavy use, the consultants determined that a golf course would not affect traffic in Newbury Park or on Santa Rosa Road. The number of additional cars--maybe one per minute--would not be noticeable amid the daily flow of traffic, they said.

To keep cars out of the delicate canyon area, the consultants proposed building the clubhouse and main parking lot on the golf course’s southernmost tip, near the Baxter Labs building under construction in the Rancho Conejo industrial park.

After parking at the clubhouse, just off Rancho Conejo Boulevard, golfers would take a shuttle ride down a steep, half-mile slope to the first tee.

The course would then wind through the canyon, ending near Santa Rosa Road. That side of the development would also feature a trail head and staging area.

Freshly refurbished pedestrian and horse trails would wind around the fairways, prompting outdoorsman Jeff Alexander to crack: “It’s supposed to be a challenging course--moving targets are challenging, aren’t they?”

The golf course, trail spruce-up, bike path and a possible nature center would total $8 million to $12 million, Lorge said.

The city could fund the project by floating municipal bonds, which would be repaid over decades with revenue from playing fees and golf cart rentals. The council has already allocated more than $91,000 for consultants’ studies.

For that fee, the consultants will conduct environmental studies to identify endangered species in the canyon.

As many as eight threatened plant species and three protected animal species, including the least Bell’s vireo and the Southwestern pond turtle, might make their homes in Hill Canyon, consultant Debra Baer said.

That news alarmed some local environmentalists.

“You can be environmentally sensitive about it, but this is still a major development in an important wildlife habitat,” Sierra Club activist Cassandra Auerbach said, voicing early objections to the plan.

But both the consultants and city officials said they would not proceed with the golf course if studies conclude that such development would seriously harm habitat.

“If it doesn’t work, there won’t be a golf course, I can tell you that,” utilities director Donald Nelson said.