Ask the average Fresnan how to get to the San Joaquin River, and you'll probably get a quizzical look.

A fair number of people have been to Lost Lake Park, but that's down the road near Friant. What about Fresno? When California's second-longest river flows into its fifth-largest city, hardly anyone notices.

That's not the case in Sacramento and Bakersfield, cities that have built extensive parkways that showcase their rivers. Sacramento's American River Parkway is 32 miles long. The Kern River Parkway through Bakersfield runs 20. Turn around after a mile, or go all day.

Fresno has nothing comparable. There's no place to bike along the San Joaquin, or spend a couple of hours strolling its banks. No convenient spot to launch a kayak or canoe.

The River West Open Space Area has the potential to change all that -- if the much-delayed and hotly debated project ever gets built.

Four times larger than Woodward Park, River West encompasses 1,200 acres of undeveloped river bottom on both sides of the San Joaquin west of Highway 41. On the 450-acre Fresno side, it extends west until reaching a point just below Spano Park near Palm and Nees avenues.

The land is a combination of three properties purchased from private hands over the last decade by the San Joaquin River Conservancy, the state agency charged with helping Fresno get what those other cities have: a 22-mile riverside parkway stretching from Friant to Highway 99.

The parkway's asphalt backbone, the Lewis S. Eaton Trail, would extend about 2 miles into River West. And unlike the heavily used existing segment, built on a bluff that parallels Friant Road, this addition is actually on the river.

"When it comes about, River West will be the most beautiful and significant amenity that we have in the Fresno area," said Andreas Borgeas, the recently elected Fresno County supervisor and former Fresno City Council member.

"We want to get this thing moving. Oh my gosh. It's been delayed long enough."

Bureaucratic red tape

Finding the money to build River West isn't the problem. Thanks to four statewide bonds, most recently 2006's Proposition 84, the San Joaquin River Conservancy is sitting on about $30 million that can be spent on capital improvements.

But since 2009, River West has been stuck in a bureaucratic quagmire thanks to a disagreement between two of the projects' main stakeholders: the Bluff Homeowners Association, a group of neighbors whose homes are nearby; and the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust, a nonprofit whose mission is to preserve, restore and educate the public about the river.

Parking lots and alignment of the Eaton Trail continue to be the main bones of contention.

The Bluff Homeowners are dead set against a parking lot in the river bottom that would be accessed through their neighborhood off Audubon Drive and were successful in getting it wiped off a project map released by the City of Fresno's Public Works Department in September 2011. The Parkway Trust contends the parking lot is essential to ensure adequate public access.

In addition, the Bluff Homeowners want the Eaton Trail to run as "near and along the river" as possible, where the trail also would be farther from their houses. Site plans favored by the Parkway Trust show the Eaton Trail closer to the bluff with unimproved hiking paths leading to the river.

Last fall, the two groups held a series of moderated meetings that included Borgeas and Fresno Project Manager Mark Johnson but failed to reach a resolution.