Ball Is Still Bouncing in 7-Year Fight Over Tennis Court : Zoning: Private facility violates ordinances, but banker presses bid to save it.

If you think Andre Agassi is serious about tennis, meet Sid Askari.

For seven years, with the help of some of the highest-powered lawyers and lobbyists in Los Angeles, the Iranian-born banker has fought city zoning laws and his neighbors in posh Brentwood Park in a battle to legalize a private tennis court constructed without a permit.

In all, Askari guesses that he has spent about $40,000 defending the court, which was built too close to the street. Some neighbors want it torn down.

During public hearings, in a letter to Mayor Tom Bradley and in interviews, he has accused his opponents of racism.

“It’s such a negative because I’m the only damn Persian in the neighborhood,” said Askari, 52. He said a neighbor, whom he declined to identify for publication, told him: “You people have warped minds. Iranians don’t belong in this neighborhood.”

Askari’s most dogged adversary is Robert Cowan, who lives across the street from the tennis court and is a board member of the Brentwood Park Property Owners Assn., which represents 385 homeowners in the leafy enclave north of San Vicente Boulevard.

Cowan said racism is not involved in the neighborhood opposition. He added that Askari’s charges are another ploy to evade a city ordinance that regulates installation of private tennis courts.

He termed Askari’s maneuverings an example of how zoning laws are little more than inconveniences for the well-heeled. “What it says is: Someone who has unlimited money to spend can badger the city until he wins,” Cowan said.

Askari has not won yet, but by working a system laced with opportunities to sue, appeal and otherwise stave off unfavorable outcomes, he has tenaciously avoided losing.

Last spring, he successfully sued the Board of Zoning Appeals for overstepping its jurisdiction in requiring that he trim the length of the court by eight feet. The appeals board, which has had two public hearings on Askari’s tennis court, is scheduled to take up the matter again today at City Hall. Askari also filed an appeal on a related issue last month with the City Council.

He is not alone in his battle with City Hall. Last year, when the top-shelf law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olsen was representing Askari on the case, Dan Garcia, then a partner at the firm, appeared at a public hearing as his associate spoke on behalf of the tennis court. Garcia, a former member of the city’s Planning Commission and Police Commission, is a powerful City Hall insider, particularly on land-use issues.

In addition, Askari retained a lawyer from the firm of Arthur Snyder, a former city councilman and now an influential City Hall lobbyist, to defend the tennis court.

Also speaking out in favor of the tennis court at public hearings was Deputy City Atty. Stephen Besser, who was reprimanded by City Atty. James Hahn for “creating the impression of favoritism.”

Further firepower continues to be supplied by Askari’s lead attorney, Michael Woodward, now with the Los Angeles office of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, a prestigious national firm.

The tennis court has caused such an uproar that aides to City Councilman Marvin Braude have, on three occasions, visited the Askari residence on Cliffwood Avenue to examine the site and its surroundings.

“He has obviously played the system,” Braude’s chief deputy, Cindy Miscikowski, said.

And he has played some tennis. According to a log kept by Cowan, Askari played tennis 59 times between Oct. 10, 1991, and March 18, 1992, in violation of the terms of a conditional use permit granted by the Board of Zoning Appeals.

The permit required him to cut back the court, move a fence and obtain a building permit from the city Department of Building and Safety before he could legally play tennis. The play stopped after the Department of Building and Safety cited him.

Askari said that a misunderstanding led to the citation: The appeals board had given him one year to meet the conditions set forth in the permit and he mistakenly believed that he could play in the meantime.

Askari noted that in order to document his use of the court, Cowan snapped photographs from a neighbor’s rooftop. Cowan countered that he was forced into taking the photos by Askari’s frequent public statements that the tennis court was merely a “play area for his children.”

Further fueling the controversy, Cowan has suggested a possible conflict of interest on the part of the city attorney’s office, noting that Askari and his wife gave more than $2,000 in campaign contributions to Hahn.

By Cowan’s account, Deputy City Atty. Besser, who worked as a campaign aide in Hahn’s 1989 election, adopted a position of advocacy toward the court, in part by speaking on Askari’s behalf at a March, 1991, zoning board hearing.

After Cowan brought the matter to Hahn’s attention, Hahn, in a June 20, 1991, letter, wrote back that he had instructed Besser to remove himself from “any involvement whatsoever in the Askari matter” and had “reprimanded him for appearing at these meetings without my permission.”

The letter continued: “Regardless of the fact that he did not feel he was doing anything wrong, Mr. Besser clearly created the impression of favoritism, which undermines trust in this office.”

Hahn returned the $2,000 in campaign contributions to Askari. Askari said the contributions had “no relationship whatsoever” to Besser’s conduct. Besser declined to comment, citing the continuing litigation by Askari against the city.

For all the twists in the long dispute, its origins are uncontested.

Askari poured the concrete for the court in 1985 without getting a building permit. He also built the court 16.5 feet into a city-owned easement along Evanston Street.

Attorney Woodward acknowledged that his client should have gotten city permission before building the court. But ever since, he argued, Askari has made a good faith effort to cooperate with the city and his neighbors.

“It seems to me that the neighbors want to damn him for eternity,” Woodward said.

Askari noted that the tennis court is well shielded from Cowan’s property by ficus trees, and it does not have outdoor lighting, towering fencing or other intrusive extras. Askari claims that it blends in with a neighborhood where lavish landscaping, ivy-draped retaining walls and other structures, including tennis courts, often encroach onto uncommonly deep city easements.

Homeowners association President William Poms said most encroaching structures predate today’s zoning laws and were grandfathered in. Askari said that some have been built recently without protest from the association, which he accuses of practicing “selective enforcement.”

The controversy recalls a somewhat similar dispute involving another neighborhood resident, Gil Garcetti, the recently elected district attorney.

In 1987, after a yearlong battle with the association, the Board of Zoning Appeals ordered Garcetti, then chief deputy district attorney, to tear down about 11 feet of his three-car garage because it was built too close to the street. The decision was reversed in court.

Now the credibility of the association is being tested again.

“We have to contend constantly with the precedent Mr. Askari has set,” Poms said. “In other words: ‘If Mr. Askari has (a tennis court), why can’t I?’ It makes it very difficult for us.”