Disputed Resort Site Being Sold to Japanese : Topanga Canyon: The Tohshin Co. plans to build 97 houses and a golf course. The $22.6-million deal is contingent on the present owner obtaining five county permits.

Property for a controversial Topanga Canyon resort is being sold to a Japanese company that intends to build 97 houses and a golf course on land that nearby residents have fought to preserve, according to real estate documents.

The 257-acre Montevideo Country Club site is being sold to the Tohshin Co. for $22.6 million, according to petitions asking a federal bankruptcy court to approve the sale.

The sale, however, is contingent upon the land’s present owner, developer Charles Wojciechowski, obtaining five Los Angeles County permits for construction of the project, the documents say.

Neither Wojciechowski nor representatives of the Tohshin Co. could be reached for comment.

News of the sale rekindled community opposition that had been dormant since Wojciechowski filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection about a year ago. Opponents hoped Wojciechowski’s financial problems had shelved the project.

“We’ve been fighting this as a community for 12 years, and we still intend on fighting it now,” Al Riggs, who owns an adjacent property, said Friday.

Bob Bates, chairman of the Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community, said the association is fighting the project because it would destroy the rural atmosphere of Topanga Canyon.

Community opposition, however, has not been unanimous. Another neighborhood group--Homeowners Assn. of Viewridge Estates--has supported the development.

Wojciechowski filed for bankruptcy after the County Board of Supervisors whittled down his proposed resort from one that included twice as many houses, a shopping center, heliport, hotel and museum.

Escrow on the sale is 120 days, and the agreement was signed Sept. 27, according to the petition by Wojciechowski to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, which has jurisdiction over his assets.

David Vannatta, a land-use specialist in Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s office, said acquiring the five permits by the end of January would be difficult but not impossible.

“He’s a long way through the process,” Vannatta said. Wojciechowski already has preliminary approval to build 125 houses and facilities for golf, tennis and horseback riding. The real estate documents suggest Tohshin would develop according to those plans but build just 97 houses.

Details remain to be finalized, Vannatta said, including the proposed level of grading for the golf course and sewage treatment for the development.

The five permits listed as contingencies are: a conditional use permit, a zone change permit, a vesting track map, an oak tree permit and an area plan amendment.

Wojciechowski sent an angry letter to the County Regional Planning Department when his resort plan was scaled back in 1988, suggesting that the planning director and his staff move to Havana where their “Marxist hurdles” to growth might be put to good use.

Wojciechowski’s son, Michael, has largely taken over business dealings regarding the land, Vannatta said.