{"id":54513,"date":"2026-08-22T23:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T23:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/54513\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T23:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T23:05:13","slug":"mountain-lions-stall-stall-woodland-hills-golf-course-housing-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/54513\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain Lions stall stall Woodland Hills golf course housing project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The mountain lions<\/a> have won the day in Woodland Hills, as oppostion to building nearly 400 residences on a local golf course stalled a real estate developer\u2019s plan to turn the private club into a residential community.<\/p>\n

Woodland Hills Country Club<\/a>, a century-old golf course near the Santa Monica Mountains in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood, can keep letting cougars cruise the fairways at least for the near future, City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said, as he helped stymie efforts to fast-track approvals of the proposed housing complex.<\/p>\n

The owners of the country club, Newport Beach developer Arrimus Capital<\/a>, hoped to get the project underway quickly by using the provisions of a state housing bill intended to let builders bypass lengthy city review processes for mixed-income multifamily residential developments on commercial land, such as a golf course.<\/p>\n

Not so fast, Blumenfield said in a recent statement. Mountain lions have the right of way, and city staff agrees. <\/p>\n

\u201cDue to a plethora of documentation from neighbors and a lot of biological and ecological research provided by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and other biological experts, the Planning Department just determined the Woodland Hills Country Club site is \u2018wildlife habitat\u2019 for the endangered Mountain Lion,\u201d the council member said in a newsletter to constituents.<\/a><\/p>\n

The developer was on track to bypass the city\u2019s normal discretionary review process by using Assembly Bill 2011, a newly revised state law that forces the city to approve such projects outright, Blumenfield said. That would mean that community input, environmental impacts and fire safety could not be considered prior to approval. <\/p>\n

Blumenfield had raised objections to that quick ministerial approval, citing the golf course\u2019s location in a \u201cvery high\u201d fire hazard zone and asserting that it is not in the kind of \u201ccommercial corridor\u201d that the state law addresses. But those objections weren\u2019t enough, and \u201cwe all feared that the Planning Department was on the verge of possibly approving the process ministerially.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he said, \u201cdetermining that the project is proposed on endangered species habitat was enough\u201d to force the developer to go through the lengthy conventional approval process. <\/p>\n

Arrimus Capital representative Aaron Green didn\u2019t buy the argument. <\/p>\n

The wildlife habitat determination by the city \u201cis an affront to Angelenos who are in desperate need of real housing opportunities,\u201d Green said. \u201cI\u2019ve heard some creative excuses for blocking housing in Los Angeles, but golfing mountain lions may take the prize.\u201d <\/p>\n

The city\u2019s determination stalling the project \u201cis based on the false assertion that the active golf course, in the middle of a residential neighborhood, is habitat for mountain lions,\u201d he said. Technical experts consulted by Arrimus \u201call came to the same conclusion, that the project site is not protected biological habitat.\u201d <\/p>\n

Green followed up with a legal threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city has left us with no choice but to file a lawsuit to enforce the law,\u201d he said, and consequences for taxpayers may be grave. \u201cWhen the city loses in court, it will be required to approve the project and pay millions of dollars in fines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blumenfield said there is \u201ca plethora of information including ecological and biological reports, insights from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, and years of evidence from neighbors\u201d that the golf course is habitat for mountain lions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s likely that the developer will sue the city to fight this determination, the decision from the Planning Department puts the city, and our community, in a good position,\u201d the councilman said.<\/p>\n

Last year the developer filed an application to redevelop part of the golf course<\/a> with 398 homes. It would include 175 for-sale, three-story detached single-family homes; 189 rental apartments in a four-story building and 34 rent-restricted apartments in a four-story building. The proposed project would dedicate more than 55,900 square feet to open space.<\/p>\n

The golf course was built in the mid-1920s by Woodland Hills developer Victor Giraud,<\/a> who gave away free club memberships to people buying lots in his housing tract. The course was turned into a private country club in 1945.<\/p>\n

Concerns about its potential turn to housing have been around for decades. In 1988, The Times reported<\/a> that an unnamed developer hoped to buy the then member-owned club and convert the property to luxury single-family homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll go to the wall to keep it open space,\u201d Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, said at the time. \u201cWe\u2019ll fight that to the bitter end. It\u2019s a greenbelt that\u2019s sadly needed in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mountain lions have won the day in Woodland Hills, as oppostion to building nearly 400 residences on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20551,20547,551,44,20553,1029,20554,20548,20549,12725,20555,20556,8283,20550,20552,282],"class_list":["post-54513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-blumenfield","tag-city-staff","tag-developer","tag-golf","tag-habitat","tag-home","tag-housing-complex","tag-local-golf-course","tag-mountain-lion","tag-neighbor","tag-planning-department","tag-plethora","tag-private-club","tag-project","tag-santa-monica-mountains","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}