Recently, the city of Los Angeles ruled that a golf course is now protected mountain lion habitat, which is odd because mountain lions are ambush predators that don\u2019t like spending time in wide open spaces like manicured fairways, putting greens, or a 28,000 square-foot clubhouse. The only way this makes sense is if you are familiar with how the city of LA treats housing, especially\u00a0 in more affluent single-family neighborhoods\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is about a proposal to build 398 new homes on part of the Woodland Hills Country Club \u2014 175 for sale, 223 rental units, 61 income-restricted \u2014 on a private golf course that offers little public benefit. The project was proposed under AB 2011, a 2022 state law amended in 2025, that lets cities approve housing faster on underused commercial land without years of discretionary review. Los Angeles is required to plan for more than 456,000 new homes by 2029, and is nowhere close to accomplishing that.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s followed is the classic playbook local officials and homeowners groups use to block housing: \u201cneighborhood character,\u201d not enough parking, too much traffic \u2014 all while the city insists it\u2019s taking the crisis seriously. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who represents the district where the Country Club sits, has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at this project. Here\u2019s the play-by-play.<\/p>\n
First, in December 2025, Blumenfield introduced a motion<\/a> instructing the city to analyze how these new laws applied to the project, and whether there was a way to stop it \u2014 while writing to state legislators, asking them to push for an interpretation that would disqualify it.<\/p>\n Second, in February 2026, Blumenfield with the help of Mayor Karen Bass, sent a letter to Governor Newsom asking the state to define \u201cvacant site\u201d so the golf course wouldn\u2019t qualify as vacant land under the law\u2019s fire-zone provisions \u2013 along with another motion<\/a> to get the city to do the same.<\/p>\n Third, that same February, a motion<\/a> to physically narrow Canoga Avenue, the street the project sits on, so it would no longer qualify as a \u201ccommercial corridor.\u201d A city that takes years to fix a streetlight or repair a sidewalk apparently has the resources to study shrinking a street to dodge housing law.<\/p>\n Fourth, another motion<\/a> that month, aimed at closing off the last element the golf course needs to qualify under AB 2011: a rule allowing parking on agricultural land. The goal: apply the change to every agriculturally zoned property in the city, whether or not it has anything to do with this project. Blumenfield wasn\u2019t even confident it would hold up, admitting, \u201cI\u2019m still working through the legal ability of the City to do this.<\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n