PERRIS - A county land-use panel delayed action Wednesday on a proposal for 70 acres of off-road trails in Aguanga, but one panel member said the plans face a rough, steep climb.

The trails for motorized vehicles would be one component of a 523-acre park between Vail Lake and Sage Road, about eight miles east of Temecula. Plans submitted by Canyon Lands LLC and its officer, Renee Laurence of Yorba Linda, show separate off-roading areas for children, young teens and adults. The plans also include a paintball battlefield, a fishing area along an existing 9-acre pond, trails for BMX bicycles, a picnic area and some 300 acres of open space for conservation.

The Riverside County Planning Commission delayed action on the proposal during a meeting in Perris. The proposed park overlaps several half-mile squares of land that the county's general plan, its blueprint for future development, has designated for habitat conservation since 2004, said Larry Markham, the company's development consultant. A county environmental agency and Canyon Lands are negotiating over which parts of the land should be set aside, Markham said.

County land-use planners have recommended that the Planning Commission deny Canyon Lands' request. The company has already begun bulldozing and reshaping delicate terrain without the proper permits, planners said in a report filed last week.

Planning Commissioner John Roth praised the plan's concept but said the habitat issue looms large.

"The problem is that like anything in real estate, it's about location, location, location," Roth said. "It seems like we need something that's not sited in a critical habitat."

Planning Commissioner John Petty, whose district includes Aguanga, asked commissioners to withhold comment until they hear directly from Canyon Lands' representatives. Laurence was not at the meeting Wednesday afternoon and couldn't be reached for comment afterward.

Canyon Lands' owners bought the property before Riverside County adopted the general plan in 2003, Markham said. State agencies finalized the conservation aspects of the county's plan in 2004.

Ida Martin, an Aguanga resident who spoke against the project Wednesday, displayed aerial photographs that showed what she described as Canyon Lands' efforts in late 2003 and 2004 to strip vegetation from wide swaths of the land, including erosion-prone areas along the pond, which remains from the days when the property was mined for sand and gravel. Rains can easily wash soil and silt out of the pond into nearby Temecula Creek and farther downstream into Vail Lake, Martin said. Citing those actions and the current habitat designation, Martin urged the panel to deny the request outright.

"Why prolong the death of this application?" said Martin, one of four people who spoke against the project Wednesday.

Vegetation appears to have returned to most of the pond banks and several other parts of the property, which includes a segment of Temecula Creek, a flat expanse just north of the pond, and several small canyons that extend northward. One such cleft is covered with grass, and a hundred goats grazed there Wednesday afternoon as the whoosh of the occasional car on nearby Highway 79 punctuated the sound of a steady breeze.

A representative of a trade group funded by manufacturers said opponents had mischaracterized Canyon Lands' actions at the site. By blocking a commercial venue within easy driving distance of populated areas, the county would maintain the incentive for rogue riders to use off-highway vehicles on hundreds of dirt lots across the county, said Meg Grossglass of the Off Road Business Association.

The matter has become more urgent in Riverside County since early last year, when the Board of Supervisors approved new restrictions on off-roading on residential property, though the county has held off on enforcing the rules until officials can review an environmental study detailing how the rules might divert street traffic and off-road riding.

"There is virtually no legal place for people to recreate with their families on OHVs," Grossglass said. "Is there any piece of land that's acceptable to put anything on?"

- Contact staff writer Chris Bagley at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2615, or cbagley@californian.com.