Work on Disputed Road Extension Delayed 1 Day : Development: The builder agrees to hold off Reseda Boulevard grading in a bid to resolve a question over the effects on state parkland.

Work on a hotly contested extension of Reseda Boulevard across the edge of Topanga State Park south to Mulholland Drive, scheduled to begin Thursday, has been delayed at least through today.

Harlan Lee & Associates, which is building 178 luxury houses in the hills above Tarzana, agreed to hold off on road grading Thursday within the park at the request of state parks officials as attorneys for the company and two state parks agencies scrambled to avert a legal battle over the road extension.

After a three-hour meeting late Thursday, company officials agreed to a second one-day delay in an attempt to resolve a dispute over whether effects of the road on state parkland were adequately reviewed.

The state Department of Parks and Recreation and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy have asked their lawyers--members of the state attorney general’s staff--to take legal action to prevent the road extension until the developer shows compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act. The act requires a thorough review of projects that could have significant environmental impacts.

State parks officials say they can find no evidence that the developer reviewed the effects of the road extension on wildlife and potential archeological sites, or that alternatives to the paved road extension were considered.

Representatives of the developer contend that environmental studies were adequate and that the state has no basis for challenging an environmental review that was completed a decade ago.

Chris Funk, attorney for Harlan Lee, said Thursday night that he would talk today to Los Angeles city officials about changing the design of the road to reduce the amount of grading on state parkland.

It was unclear if that alone would satisfy state parks officials who contend that further environmental review is needed.

However, Funk said, the adequacy of the review is a “moot point by now.” He also characterized the state’s last-minute concerns as “too little, too late” because “the statute of limitations . . . has long ago run.”

The dispute is complicated by the passage of 10 years since the project was approved, and the fact that the city--not the developer--has pushed for the road extension.

Called Mulholland Park, the project was approved by the city in 1981, but was moribund until Harlan Lee took it over from a previous owner in 1988. The company also inherited a permit condition, imposed by the city, that Reseda Boulevard be paved and extended southward beyond the end of the development to the Mulholland crest.

City fire officials contended that the paved road was needed for access and escape from fires.

Concerned that the paved extension would promote housing and landfill development in the mountains, demonstrators chained themselves to bulldozers in June, 1989, in a failed attempt to stop the road.

The extended road, which would replace the present dirt fire trail, would first cross Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy land and then continue about 700 feet into the northern boundary of Topanga State Park en route to the Mulholland crest.

The conservancy property is part of a 440-acre tract that Harlan Lee gave to that state agency as a condition of building approvals.

The conservancy land has already been heavily graded in recent weeks. On Thursday, six huge yellow earthmovers crawled over a denuded stub of the conservancy land, stopping just short of the Topanga State Park boundary.

State parks officials did not take action to block the road until notified Tuesday that grading of parkland was about to begin.

“We agree that it would have been preferable to do it sooner,” said Dan Preece, chief of the state parks department’s Santa Monica Mountains district. “But regardless of the timing, we are now aware of, and concerned about, several unanswered questions.”

The conservancy announced Thursday that it would join the parks department in asking the state attorney general’s office to consider legal action to delay the road. The announcement came after some local homeowners and environmentalists criticized the conservancy for not taking a strong stand.

“We’re standing 100% with state parks,” said Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the conservancy.