1,800 Acres Offered for OK to Build Golf Course : Development: A Japanese tycoon proposes the land swap. The plan would create the largest privately held nature preserve in the Ojai Valley.

A Japanese broadcasting tycoon who wants to build a private golf course west of Ojai has offered to donate 1,800 acres of scenic, mountainside property to a local land conservancy in exchange for rights to build the elite club.

The proposed land swap, which would create the largest privately held nature preserve ever in the Ojai Valley, is the latest attempt that proponents of the Farmont Golf Club have made in a five-year effort to get county approval for the course.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors in 1987 denied a request to build a golf course, meeting hall and two dozen private bungalows on 2,000 acres that Kagehisa Toyama’s Farmont Corp. owns near the Rancho Matilija subdivision.

Toyama, owner of Radio Nippon, Japan’s largest radio station, was told by the board that the size and scope of the project was an inappropriate use of open space, despite the fact that golf courses are allowed on land with that designation.

Proponents are now touting the downsized Farmont Golf Club--which has been redesigned three times, and is now planned for a 200-acre parcel of agricultural land near California 150--as the most environmentally sound, water-conserving use of the property.

During a site tour last week, environmental consultant Steve Craig said negotiations are under way to deed development rights for about 1,800 acres next to the proposed course to one of several Southern California land conservancies, effectively ensuring that the mountainous, oak- and sycamore-covered parcel remains open space.

“I see this becoming a huge environmental preserve with a small, private golf course,” Craig said while scanning the panoramic mountain view that would serve as the course’s backdrop.

The Farmont plan closely resembles the successful swap of public parkland for development rights that backers of the Ahmanson Ranch property in eastern Ventura County effected last year, although residential housing tracts are not planned as part of the Farmont proposal.

“I know it is hard for anyone to see a golf course as anything but an amenity around which to build homes, but this is a different proposal. It is a golf course for golf purposes only,” said Farmont legal counsel Lindsay F. Nielson.

Nielson’s comments on the purpose of the proposed course reflect Toyama’s philosophy, he said.

In a previous interview with the Times, Toyama, an avid golfer, said he sees the sport as part religion and part philosophy, a view held by many of Japan’s devoted golfers.

Building a world-class golf course has been Toyama’s dream for much of his life, he said. When he first laid eyes on the idyllic Ojai Valley, Toyama decided that he had found the spot for his dream course.

Toyama disavows the previous proposal--which was billed as a “Camp David West” where the political and business elite could meet and play golf--as the work of misguided advisers who did not understand his singular passion to build a first-class fairway.

Opponents of the previous proposal objected to its massive scope and still question whether the new proposal could lead to more growth.

City Councilwoman Nina Shelley, an outspoken opponent of the last proposal, said the project’s effect on local water, traffic and open space preservation will all play a role in the position she takes.

“I think open space would be the best way to go with that piece of property, given the growth factor here in the valley,” Shelley said.

“However, we may have to be sensible and look at the idea of the property being zoned as a golf course in perpetuity and absolutely limit all further development.”

Craig, whose Santa Barbara consulting firm successfully stewarded the Rancho San Marcos course through the permitting process in Santa Barbara last year, said the Farmont proposal fits the Ojai Valley’s slow-growth standards.

“We have no plans for any development beyond the golf course. Eight times as much land could be preserved as viewscape, parkland and open space as is planned for the golf course,” Craig said.

County planners are now reviewing a draft of the environmental report for the project, county planner Janna Minsk said.

The report--which focuses on effects that the project could have on air quality, traffic, water and plant and animal life--is expected to be released publicly by early spring, Minsk said.

The Environmental Report Review Committee will hold public hearings on the report’s findings. If the report is certified, the project will go before the county Planning Commission, Minsk said.