County Rejects Topanga Canyon Resort : Supervisors Refuse to Approve Hotel, Limit Subdivision to 125 Homes

Topanga Canyon homeowners won an 8-year fight against a proposed $100-million mountain resort Thursday when Los Angeles County supervisors ordered the project converted instead into a luxury home subdivision.

Ending the longest-running zoning dispute in county history, the board rejected plans for a 150-room hotel, 150 houses, a large museum and a shopping center on a 257-acre parcel near the canyon’s northern border with Woodland Hills.

Instead, they gave developer Christopher R. Wojciechowski permission to construct 125 homes, a carefully graded golf course, a small equestrian center and tennis courts where he had envisioned building a world-class “Montevideo Country Club.”

The board’s 3-0 vote stunned resort supporters and opponents alike. It came during the 29th public hearing on Wojciechowski’s project.

An angry Wojciechowski refused to comment as he led about 60 project supporters from the supervisors’ board room. He had told supervisors that he needed to build at least 150 homes and the hotel for his project to be economically viable.

Jubilant homeowners said the project rollback will help preserve the country atmosphere of their mountain valley.

“This is a major victory--absolutely the best thing that could happen,” said Bob Goldberg, a spokesman for the Topanga Town Council, a homeowners group. “It’s a landmark decision in L.A. County.”

The supervisors’ vote followed an unusual peace conference conducted earlier this week by Topanga Canyon residents who for years have feuded among themselves over the country club project. The Town Council and two other homeowner groups reached basic agreement over density and the mix of commercial and residential development they could support. They continued to differ over the hotel issue, however.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents Topanga Canyon and led the board vote, cited “the depth of discussion and the willingness of the community to come together” in calling Thursday for limits to the project.

“This is a compromise,” Antonovich said. “With any compromise, you try to reach a consensus.”

Antonovich’s motion allows for a small child-care center and a 60-stall stable on the site. It calls for a 15% reduction in grading planned for the proposed 18-hole golf course, the preservation of some ridgelines, preservation of a special wildlife corridor and minimum 1-acre residential lots.

The Town Council’s Goldberg conceded that Antonovich’s action may have been a “politically expedient decision” in light of Antonovich’s reelection campaign against slow-growth advocate Baxter Ward. He stressed, however, that opponents have held numerous meetings on the project with county officials during the last three years.

Ward, who sat quietly in the back of the huge supervisors board room, declined to comment on the vote.

But L. Paul Cook, a spokesman for a Topanga homeowners group that has supported the country club proposal, termed it “an extreme disappointment.” He said his Homeowners Assn. of Viewridge Estates favored a low density plan that was agreed to in this week’s homeowner peace conference but thought the hotel was necessary to financially support the golf course.

“There’s no financial way now to build a golf course,” Cook said. “We’re going to lose that open space. It will be sold to a developer who will fill it with houses.”

John Argue, an attorney for Wojciechowski, said the fate of the project is up in the air.

“We’re going to take a look at it,” Argue said. “We weren’t expecting this. We’ll wait and see what happens.”