SIERRA MADRE -- With the aim of keeping the Valley foothills undeveloped, the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments has begun discussions on forming an open space district going from Altadena to Claremont and from Whittier to the Diamond Bar foothills.

At a special meeting in Sierra Madre on Thursday, nonprofit conservancy groups and the council of governments discussed the proposal's feasibility.

"Sierra Madre has a real interest because there's four major parcels we want to acquire," including the One Carter site owned by Maranatha High School, said Bart Doyle, vice president of the council of governments and a Sierra Madre City Councilman.

The council of governments will decide this month whether to proceed with a feasibility study, which Doyle said will cost between $50,000 and $100,000 and will include mapping out open space sites for acquisition, forming an open space district, and estimating the cost of acquiring the sites.

The study would take about six months to complete and then each member city of SGVCOG would decide whether it wants to participate in the acquisition.

If so, the council of governments will pursue state and federal grants to acquire the property, and Doyle said it will likely take a hefty sum.

"We're not competing with these conservancy groups that are already trying to do this, we're just supplementing them," Doyle said. "As a public entity, we can apply for funds nobody else can apply for."

Nicholas Conway, executive director of SGVCOG, said some of the conservancies are charged with looking at open space in other areas besides the San Gabriel Valley and it can spread them too thin.

"Our focus is just on the San Gabriel Valley," he said. "So we're trying to coordinate and look at this together to see if we can help."

-- Marie Leech can be reached at (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4494, or by e-mail at marie.leechsgvn.com.