Topanga Project Denied : Development: Residents cheer as supervisors block a builder’s plan to grade canyon hillsides for houses and a country club. The vote ends a 12-year battle.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Thursday ended one of the longest-running zoning disputes in county history when they rejected a plan to build 97 houses, a golf course and a country club in Topanga Canyon.

The 3-1 vote concluded a battle between a group of Topanga Canyon residents and the developer of the proposed Montevideo Country Club that lasted 12 years and involved more than 30 hearings.

More than 100 Topanga residents, who bused in to pack the board room, leaped to their feet and cheered after the votes were cast.

They attributed their victory not only to the switch in their district’s representation through court-ordered redistricting--from generally pro-development Supervisor Mike Antonovich to slow-growth advocate Supervisor Ed Edelman--but also to their own staying power.

“The arguments that we presented over the years have been cogent and logical,” said Bob Goldberg, who spoke before the board on behalf of the Topanga Town Council, a homeowner group.

During nearly two hours of testimony, speakers opposing the Montevideo project described the natural setting of the area at length and said the removal of 177 oak trees would destroy a forest.

Others said the massive grading required for the golf course would level an entire ridgeline.

“It is basically a flat-lands golf course that has no place in the Santa Monica Mountains,” Goldberg said.

A representative for developer Christopher R. Wojciechowski, a major financial contributor to campaigns of the conservative supervisors, said he would add the denial to a pending lawsuit against the county that alleges unreasonable delays in consideration of the project.

“If the decision is that a golf course is the wrong land use there, then somebody should have said it before,” said Wojciechowski’s attorney, Thomas F. Winfield. “In 12 years, nobody said that.”

Montevideo was proposed in 1978 for 257 acres in the scenic Summit Valley region of Topanga Canyon, not far from the area’s small commercial district.

Original plans for the development called for 224 houses, a golf course, a tennis club, an equestrian center, a hotel and a 17,000-square-foot commercial center.

Over the years, as county planning commissioners and local residents questioned the scope of the project, various portions were peeled away until it reached its current proposed size: 97 houses and a combined golf course and tennis club.

It was the kind of compromise that usually drew supervisors’ approval in the past.

In fact, the latest proposal exceeded in many respects a list of 11 recommendations the board made in 1988, which they said at the time would satisfy their concerns.

But in the interim, a decade of conservative control of the board was ended by a federal court ruling that redrew district boundaries to create a Latino-dominated 1st District.

The recent election to the board of Gloria Molina, a City Council Democrat, and the switch of Topanga’s representative from Antonovich to Edelman worked

against Montevideo approval, board observers said.

Edelman led the vote against the project, saying that although it was better than its past incarnations, it still would cause “a maximum destruction of the natural terrain.”

“This is a case that is not consistent with the Santa Monica Mountains goals and plan,” Edelman said.

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn seconded the motion and Molina cast the third vote against the project.

Supervisor Deane Dana was the only opposing vote because Antonovich was absent Thursday.

His spokesman, Dawson Oppenheimer, said Antonovich was in Sacramento attending a meeting of the County Supervisors Assn. of California and was unavailable for comment.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy also entered the fray, urging Edelman to eliminate the golf course and cluster the development in one area because of concerns about the grading and the disruption of wildlife habitat.

A smaller group of Montevideo supporters, most of whom live in a nearby housing development called Viewridge Estates, said the opponents were self-centered and shortsighted.

They said the development would increase their property values and the golf course would provide a moist firebreak between the canyon’s wild brush and their homes.

“I look at that area now and nothing’s being done with it. It serves no purpose. Nobody’s using it,” said Eric Best, who lives about 300 feet from the Montevideo property. “I’d like to see a golf course there. I’d like to use it.”

Between 1986 and 1990, Wojciechowski gave more than $66,000 to county supervisors, with nearly half that amount going to Antonovich. Dana received at least $15,000 and former Supervisor Pete Schabarum, whose 1st District seat went to Molina, received at least $21,000.

Of the board’s liberals, only Hahn received money from the developer, and he received only about $500.