Last-Second Deal Ends Canyon Oaks Dispute : Parkland: The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy announces it will buy the site. Topanga residents cheer.

By AARON CURTISS

March 11, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The longest land-use dispute in Los Angeles County history came to a startling conclusion Thursday as the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy announced that it would buy the proposed site of a controversial development in Topanga Canyon--just minutes before the Board of Supervisors was to vote on the project.

Hundreds of Topanga residents packing the board’s cavernous Downtown chambers jumped to their feet and applauded as Supervisor Ed Edelman unveiled the eleventh-hour deal, which was hammered out in grueling overnight negotiations and is as historic as the tortuous tale of the project itself.

If the board approves the deal later this month, the $19.9 million the conservancy offered for 662 acres in the canyon’s Summit Valley area would be the highest price paid by the state agency since its 1979 creation. The conservancy intends to preserve the land in its natural state for public use.

The move scotches plans to develop Canyon Oaks Estates--a proposed private links-style golf course and 97 luxury home sites on 257 acres--and ends a nasty fight pitting neighbor against neighbor that began 16 years ago when a different developer proposed a similar, but much larger, project.

Years of vehement community protest appeared to have taken their toll in what detractors considered a rare victory against a well-financed opponent.

Robert L. Wilson, president of the Canyon Oaks Estates partnership, said the corporation was tired of fighting a battle that he said in recent months had degenerated into smear tactics and personal attacks. In fact, he said, the corporation, part of a Disney family trust, will lose money--money he said cannot be recouped through tax write-offs.

“We just wanted to reach a resolution,” Wilson said.

Canyon Oaks had rejected previous purchase offers from the conservancy, which has acquired more than 20,000 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains for use as public parkland.

“This is a very positive first step,” said Wilson, who helps manage the trust established by the late Sharon Disney Lund, daughter of the late Walt Disney. Canyon Oaks is part of the trust, which is unrelated to other Walt Disney Co. ventures.

Despite Thursday’s announcement, plans to develop Canyon Oaks Estates will remain before the county. If supervisors and the conservancy fail to finalize the deal before April 5, Wilson said the corporation will press forward with its proposal.

But Joseph T. Edmiston, conservancy executive director, said he does not expect any difficulty in realizing the agreements reached during a 19-hour negotiating session that ended at dawn Thursday.

Most of the money for the purchase--about $14.1 million--will come from Proposition A funds already earmarked for land acquisition in the Santa Monica Mountains. That transaction will put 432 acres into public hands. The remaining 230 acres will cost about $5.8 million, due in August, 1995. Those funds are expected to come from Proposition 180, a statewide parks initiative on the June 7 ballot, or through fund-raising efforts, Edmiston said.

Supervisors, who have final say over disbursement of Proposition A funds, are scheduled to vote March 29 on releasing the initial $14.1 million to the conservancy.

Within minutes of the deal’s announcement, Topanga residents who earlier had been noisily picketing the project outside the county building were shaking hands with Canyon Oaks lawyers and managers, promising to work together to make sure the agreement holds.

To all but the tiny group of negotiators, news of the deal was a surprise.

“I was like totally shocked,” said Roger Pugliese, vice chairman of the Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community and one of the project’s most vociferous critics. “But it could not have gone better.”

It first became apparent that something was in the works about 9:45 a.m. Thursday when a Canyon Oaks attorney asked for a 30-minute delay in the supervisors’ hearing. Edelman, credited with brokering the deal, granted the attorney’s request and hinted that something historic was about to take place.

That delay was key, providing enough time for an arm of the conservancy--the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority--to meet in Calabasas and take an emergency vote to purchase the property. As soon as news of that 4-0 vote was telephoned Downtown, supervisors resumed their meeting and announced the deal.

Hundreds of Topanga residents burst into applause and cheers, prompting Chairwoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke to bang her gavel and shout: “Forgive me, but this is not a football game.”

It was a far happier ending for opponents than that anticipated just 24 hours earlier, when both sides believed that the project would ultimately end up before a judge.

Those involved in the last-minute negotiations said the impasse only began to lift Tuesday night when Edelman visited the property about three miles south of the Ventura Freeway.

“It just seemed to me that we had to make a last-ditch effort to see if there was a will to resolve this thing,” said Edelman, who called Edmiston from his car phone while driving back along Pacific Coast Highway to arrange the meeting with Wilson.

At 11 a.m. Wednesday, both sides sat down for the first time in months in Edelman’s eighth-floor office. Later that evening, talks moved to the 49th-floor conference room of a Downtown law firm.

“We only took potty breaks,” said Edmiston, adding he did not leave until about 6:30 the next morning.

Although the conservancy had made previous offers to buy the property, Canyon Oaks executives had rejected them. Wilson said the past proposals were turned down because the conservancy did not have access to the money necessary to support its offers, which were only for the 257 acres proposed for immediate development.

But the availability of Proposition A funds in the fall made it possible to bid for the entire property, which straddles Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

The drama with which the Canyon Oaks story ended was appropriate, considering that its history includes dozens of public hearings, a flurry of lawsuits, and uncounted accusations of sleaze and malfeasance.

Permits for the project were first requested in 1978. Two years later, it was unveiled as the Montevideo Country Club, with 257 homes, a commercial center, golf course, country club and hotel. The mastermind of the deal was the ruddy-faced son of a Polish cavalry officer, Christopher Wojciechowski.

Hard-charging and blunt, Wojciechowski won few friends in bucolic Topanga Canyon as he lobbied to get permits for his projects. A decade after it was proposed, the project was significantly scaled back by county officials.

But by 1989, the debt-saddled Montevideo Partnership was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing debts of $28 million. As the partnership was being reorganized, supervisors in 1991 rejected the most recent version of the project. Two weeks later, however, the board changed its mind and sent the project back into the county bureaucracy for revisions and public hearings. The revised proposal only emerged from the Regional Planning Commission in December.

In the meantime, however, the leadership of the partnership had changed. Wojciechowski was forced out and replaced by his partner, Sharon Disney Lund, a USC schoolmate who had lent the developer $5 million for his project.

Under Lund, who died last year, the project name was changed, as was its scope. Promoters claimed that it was more sensitive to the environment, but many neighbors complained that it was the same project with a new name.

They highlighted the connection with the Disney family and complained that the trust’s deep pockets could keep plans alive at great cost. Opponents characterized a $500,000 grant offered by Canyon Oaks to improve the community’s trails as a bribe.

Yet, when Wilson promised Thursday that the $500,000 would still be donated to the community, no one turned him down.

As conflict intensified in the past year, both sides launched publicity campaigns that savaged each other and sought to stain the personal reputations of key players.

Canyon Oaks officials characterized opposition leaders as hypocrites, accusing them of protesting new development even as they made illegal additions to their homes and allowed their septic systems to overflow into Topanga Creek.

Foes attacked the Walt Disney Co., portraying such characters as Mickey Mouse and the Seven Dwarfs as fanged money-grubbers. Earlier this week, schoolchildren picketed the company in Burbank, carrying signs that read “Don’t Mickey Mouse with our mountains.”

But Thursday, opposing sides shook hands, then stood next to each other with forced grins and appeared at least on the surface to forgive and forget.

As the crowd filed out of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, a little boy stood cheering on a wall. After a friend asked what he was up to, he shouted: “We’re going to Disneyland!”

Arrested Development

Topanga Canyon Land to be Purchased by Conservancy

A state parks agency, Los Angeles County officials and a developer crafted a last-minute plan that would turn the site of a proposed 257-acre housing and golf complex into public parkland. Most recently known as Canyon Oaks Estates, the project was at the heart of the longest land-use dispute in county history. Entire purchase involves 662 acres.

What is Preserved

The 257 acres contain streamside habitat and more than 400 oak trees and native plants such as coastal sage scrub, chapparal and grassland, Site is also home to coyotes, deer, hawks and mountain lions.

What is Rejected

If the plan had been approved, this area would have had 97 home lots, 153-acre golf course and a tennis club. Three artificial lakes were planned, along with a waste-water treatment plant. The project would have called for the grading of 3.29 million cubic acres of earth. Developers promised to relocate 102 of the 151 impacted oak trees on-site and restore the native plant communities on 108 acres.

How the Deal Works:

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, an arm of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, voted Thursday to purchase land owned by Canyon Oaks. The process:

* Authority Thursday asked the Board of Supervisors to set aside $14.1 million in Proposition A park funds to allow purchase of 432 acres.

* The authority would handle purchase, but supervisors must release the funds. They are to vote on the request March 29.

Escrow deadline: April 5. If sale does not close, developer will ask supervisors to approve the project.

Remaining 230 acres to be purchased with funds from Proposition 180, a statewide ballot initiative, or other sources. Payment deadline: August, 1995.

$5,791,000: Funding source uncertain

$14,100,000: Proposition A funding

$19,891,000: Total Purchase price

Turf Wars in Topanga Canyon

Until a state parks agency purchased the property, over the past 15 years proposals for a development in Topanga Canyon took a tortuous path in an attempt for approval. Residents protested it each step of the way.

Troubled History

Oct. 16, 1978: Architect Christopher Wojciechowski requests permits from Los Angeles County for a development project in Topanga Canyon.

980: Wojciechoswki unveils plans for a country club, hotel, golf course and commercial center, to be called Montevideo Country Club, after his company, Montevideo Partnership.

April 6, 1986: Montevideo Partnership acquires 657 acres in Topanga Canyon--257 for country club and 400 for future housing development.

Jan. 19, 1988: Regional Planning Commission votes 3 to 2 to scale back Montevideo project. Case goes to Board of Supervisors.

Aug. 4, 1988: Supervisors declare their intent to approve another scaled-down version of the country, requesting additional planning studies for the project to win final approval.

Jan. 5, 1988: Montevideo sues supervisors, accusing county of causing unreasonable and costly delays.

Dec. 5, 1989: Montevideo files for bankruptcy.

April 18, 1991: Board of Supervisors reject another version of country club.

April 30, 1991: Supervisors reverse decision and vote to reconsider project, sending it back to Regional Planning Commission for another public hearing.

1992: Former Montevideo partner Sharon Disney Lund assumes control of the property and becomes prime mover behind newly-named project, Canyon Oaks Estates.

Sept. 22, 1993: Los angeles Regional Planning Commission approves plans to build Canyon Oaks.

Jan. 13, 1994: Board of Supervisors suspends decision on project, rescheduling meeting.

March 10, 1994: At Board of Supervisors meeting, development firm announces it will sell the 257-acre plot, along with another 400-acre plot, to Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for $19 million.

Key Land Acquisitions

Land the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has purchased or received by donationsince it formed in 1978:

Purchases

Land: Temescal Gateway Park

Date purchased: 1982

Size: 20 acrees

Location: Pacific Palisades

Land: Circle X Ranch

Date purchased: 1987

Size: 1,655 acres

Location: Near Point Mugu State Park

Land: Fryman Canyon

Date purchased: 1987

Size: 59 acres

Location: Studio City

Land: Towsley Canyon

Date purchased: 1991

Size: 453 acres

Location: Santa Clarita Valley

Land: Jordan Ranch

Date purchased: 1993

Size: 2,300 acres

Location: Simi Hills

GIFTS

Donor Date Size Location Dick Clark 1986 57 acres Deer Creek (Ventura County) Warren Beatty 1987 20 acres Dixie Canyon (Sherman Oaks) Barbra Streisand 1993 24 acres Malibu Jack Nicholson 1994 60 acres Coldwater Canyon Merv Griffin 1994 104 acres Benedict Canyon

How the Project Evolved

Economic pressures, protests by Topanga Canyon residents and directives from county officials drastically changed the plans of the proposed golf course and luxury housing development over the years. Here is a look at key features of the 1988, 1991 and 1994.

Features: Total Acres

1988 Project: 257

1991 Project: 257

1994 Project: 257

Features: Dwelling Units

1988 Project: 224 units on 91 acres

1991 Project: 97 units on 108.5 acres

1994 Project: 97 units on 78.7 acres

Features: Commercial Uses

1988 Project: 106-room hotel, market, gas station

1991 Project: None

1994 Project: None