8-Year Feud Over Resort in Topanga Canyon Ends

An eight-year feud over a $100-million resort project that turned neighbor against neighbor in Topanga Canyon has been resolved, paving the way for a possible compromise in Los Angeles County’s longest-running zoning dispute, homeowners said.

Leaders of the Topanga Town Council--a homeowners group, not a government body--and the Homeowners Assn. of Viewridge Estates said Wednesday that they now agree on the proper size and scope of the proposed 257-acre Montevideo Country Club.

The agreement--reached on the eve of a hearing by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on the development--apparently ends a rift between canyon residents who support the resort project and those who opposed it.

Residents have repeatedly collided over the country club plan. Its supporters, including the Viewridge homeowners, claimed that it would bring needed services and permanent open space to the canyon. But opponents, led by the Town Council, charged that it would bring traffic and flooding and an end to the canyon’s country atmosphere.

Scaled-Down Plan

The homeowners groups said they have agreed to endorse a scaled-down country club plan that would include construction of 100 homes around a golf course wrapped into the hilly site west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, near the canyon’s boundary with Woodland Hills.

They said they will oppose any effort to straighten the boulevard as it passes by the Montevideo site and will fight any move to build homes on the site’s ridgelines.

The homeowners will reveal their compromise plan to the Board of Supervisors at 9:30 a.m. today at the downtown Hall of Administration. It will be the 29th county public hearing on the Montevideo proposal in the past eight years.

“We’re going in united on Thursday,” said Jan Moore, a director and former president of the Town Council. “This is a breakthrough, just like what seems to be happening today with the writers’ strike.

“I feel like the Israelis and the PLO have finally come together on a homeland.”

First Time

Viewridge Estates leader L. Paul Cook agreed that the compromise marked “the first time in all the years this proposal has been going on that we’ve met and come to agreement on a substantial number of issues.”

The 130-home Viewridge neighborhood is across Topanga Canyon Boulevard from the Montevideo site. Until now its homeowners association, known as HAVE, has vigorously endorsed a large-scale country club plan that included 163 single-family homes, a 220-room hotel and a 17,000-square-foot shopping center.

Former HAVE President Joan Cooper had actively sought supporters for the project from elsewhere in the canyon. She frequently lobbied for it before county planning commissioners, supervisors and in letters to newspapers.

Recently, a dissident group that opposed Cooper’s stance was formed. It dubbed itself Viewridge Owners Involved in the Community and Environment, or VOICE.

Subsequently, Cooper’s term of office ended and she did not seek reelection. She was replaced by leadership that is apparently more receptive to restrictions on the project. Cooper said late Wednesday that she supports the position HAVE will take at today’s hearing.

Herbert Petermann, a spokesman for VOICE, said his group also participated in the canyon dwellers’ three-hour summit meeting late Tuesday.

“It was very good,” Petermann said. “More of an agreement than we expected was reached.”

The new coalition will seek to widen a proposed wildlife corridor through the country club site, preserve oak trees on the property and curtail proposed commercial development there, participants said.

They did not agree on the issue of a hotel on the country club site, however. The Town Council and VOICE oppose it, but HAVE supports a scaled-down lodge if one is needed to make the golf course economically viable.

Montevideo Country Club developer Christopher R. Wojciechowski could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

County officials, however, said Wojciechowski has submitted a redesigned country club plan that calls for 150 homes, a 150-room hotel, a small commercial area, a day-care center and a museum, which still represents a substantially greater development than the homeowners’ proposed compromise.

County officials speculated, however, that Wojciechowski and canyon residents are moving closer to an agreement. They predicted that another round of public hearings, including a new review by the county Planning Commission, may be required before the case is closed.

“They’re closer, but they’re still not together,” said Dave Vanatta, chief land use planning deputy for Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the Topanga Canyon area.