Council Again Delays Decision on Hillside Project : Development: Builder of Woodland Hills Estates threatens to sue over postponement. Plan calls for 30 ridge-top homes.

Despite threats by the developer to sue the city for continually postponing the matter, the Los Angeles City Council delayed a vote Wednesday on a controversial plan to build at least 30 homes along a Mulholland Drive ridge.

The project, known as Woodland Hills Estates, would pave an unimproved section of Mulholland and remove at least 160,000 cubic yards of earth to develop the project just east of Topanga Canyon. Originally the plan called for 37 homes, but the developer has offered a compromise plan with 30 homes.

Still, neighbors and conservationists oppose the project, calling it too large. In response, the City Council has postponed a decision twice in the past in hopes of resolving a stalemate between opponents and the developer, Maj Rayes.

But Rayes’ Sherman Oaks attorney, Ben Reznik, said the council has exceeded a June 16 deadline to take action on the project and has forfeited its right to overturn the Planning Commission’s Jan. 26 approval of the project.

He said if the council does not allow his client to build at least 30 homes on the project, he will sue on the basis that the council has exceeded the deadline. If he wins the suit, he said the city will be required to let the developer build all 37 homes.

“There is a lot at stake,” Reznik said after the meeting. “That is why my client is very interested in the legal route.”

But Deputy City Atty. Claudia Culling said Reznik is mistaken. She said city bylaws require the council to schedule a public hearing on the matter within 30 days of the appeal. The council must then act on the appeal within seven days of the conclusion of that public hearing, she said.

The council can delay a decision past the deadline because the panel has never closed a public hearing that began during a June 20 council meeting, Culling said.

The debate over the project began in earnest when the Planning Commission approved 37 homes and allowed the developer to grade 340,000 cubic yards of earth. Homeowners and conservationists appealed the decision to the council on Feb. 3.

After the developer agreed to a delay, the council took up the appeal for the first time on May 3. But the council declined to take action, voting instead of refer the matter to a planning subcommittee. The developer allowed for another delay until June 16.

On June 20, the council debated the issue again, and again delayed a final decision to try to reach a compromise with both sides.

On Tuesday, the debate continued. The matter was referred to the council’s Planning and Land Use Committee but a date for the hearing has not been scheduled.

The dispute currently centers on whether the developer can build a secondary access road that is required by the city’s Fire Department without entirely grading away a small ridge on the edge of the project.

A city planning official told the council that the access road could not be built without grading at least part of the ridge.

Neighbors and conservationists urged the council to preserve the ridge and reduce the number of homes allowed.

“It is incumbent on you to stop a development that may run out of money and still desecrate the hillside,” Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, told the council.

Councilman Marvin Braude, whose district includes the project in the Santa Monica Mountains, suggested the council allow Rayes to build only 24 homes and require that he preserve as much of the ridge as possible when building the access road.

But Gary L. Morris, Rayes’ land-use consultant, said the smaller project proposed by Braude would be financially unfeasible considering Rayes has been working on the project for six years.

“This is the death warrant to the project,” Morris said of Braude’s compromise offer.

Other council members suggested a compromise that would allow for 25 homes within a bowl-like depression in the canyon and five homes on the ridge if it is determined that there is no way to preserve the ridge to build the access road.

Neighbors and representatives of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy said the action was a good sign that the council is not willing to bend to the demands of the developer.