WOODLAND HILLS : Action Delayed on Ridge Housing Plan

Despite a threat by the developer to withdraw a compromise plan, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday postponed action on whether to allow more than three dozen homes to be built along a ridge of Mulholland Drive now inhabited by deer and other wildlife.

The council is now scheduled to decide next week on the project, dubbed Woodland Hills Estates, which would pave a section of Mulholland and remove 340,000 cubic yards of earth to make way for 37 hilltop homes.

Neighbors and conservationists, supported by Councilman Marvin Braude, have mounted fierce opposition to the proposed development just east of Topanga Canyon. The Lebanon-based developer, Maj Rayes, has countered with a scaled-down alternative consisting of 30 lots, which would dig away 200,000 cubic yards of dirt.

On Tuesday, however, representatives of Rayes warned that he would withdraw his alternate plan if the council did not close off the long-running public hearing immediately and make a decision within a week.

“If the public hearing is not closed . . . we are going to withdraw the 30-lot compromise and take our chances” with the original proposal, said Gary L. Morris, Rayes’ land-use consultant. He said the developer has already waited months for a resolution.

The council, caught up in an hourlong debate over how long to defer action, ignored the threat. Even Councilman Hal Bernson, who supports the 30-home compromise, agreed to postpone the matter until next Wednesday after his motion to end the public hearing failed.

By withdrawing the compromise plan, the developer would be gambling that the council will ultimately go with the recommendation of the city Planning Commission, which had approved all 37 homes atop the ridge. But the council’s own planning committee rejected the commission’s recommendation, agreeing to a maximum of 30 lots.

The weeklong delay by the full council continues an issue that has dogged the city for years. Helping to orchestrate the delay is Braude, whose district includes the site. In the past, the veteran councilman has said he prefers only 20 to 22 homes to be built on the property, leaving intact a prominent ridgeline inhabited by deer and rabbits and shaded by walnut trees and oaks.

“This is one of the last residual pieces of land in the Santa Monica Mountains,” Braude said Tuesday. The terrain makes the site a “very, very hard area to develop.”