7 Years of Hearing Postponements May Be Unprecedented : Delay Riles Friends, Foes of Topanga Project

Environmentalists and developers who have been at odds since 1980 over a $100-million Topanga Canyon construction proposal have finally agreed on something: Los Angeles County is to blame for the project’s unprecedented seven-year delay.

Developer Christopher R. Wojciechowski has blasted county officials for stalling approval of the Montevideo Country Club project he hopes to build at the northern edge of the canyon.

Environmentalists who contend that the resort would destroy the rural ambiance of the canyon have criticized county officials for delaying denial of the project.

The charges have come as county planning commissioners have scheduled an April 27 hearing to discuss Wojciechowski’s proposed resort and changes to its environmental impact report.

County planners say unanswered environmental questions about the 257-acre project are apparently the reason supervisors have voted 25 times since 1980 to postpone scheduled hearings on Wojciechowski’s tentative tract map.

No other project in county history has lingered that long without either being approved or rejected, according to the county’s Department of Regional Planning.

“Some members of the county staff are very sympathetic to the opposition who have publicly vowed to stop this project,” Wojciechowski has complained in a letter to county Planning Director Norman Murdoch.

“These staff members help the opposition, as demonstrated by the unconscionable roadblocks and delays in processing this application,” Wojciechowski wrote.

Wojciechowski charged that county planners have “purposely mislaid letters in support” of the country club project. Last year, he said, planning staff members “misplaced or lost dozens of copies” of an addendum to the project’s environmental impact report to further delay proceedings.

According to Wojciechowski, the golf course-hotel-residential housing project will improve the canyon’s environment, which is now “devoid of beauty.

“It is ugly vacant land,” he stated in his letter. “It is obvious . . . that the natural vegetation barely survives on the property and there is none to speak of.”

Environmentalists reject that view.

“It’s absurd,” said Marty Corbett, a Topanga Town Council member and 10-year resident of the canyon who has helped lead opposition to the country club.

“There are lupine, poppies, wildflowers and trees all over that site. It’s beautiful up there,” Corbett said Tuesday. “There is even more wildlife than normal there because of other development in the area.”

She said canyon residents feel county officials have bent over backward to keep Wojciechowski’s project alive long enough for him to try to counteract environmentalists’ objections.

“The political climate in the county has been basically pro-development,” Corbett said.

Murdoch could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But one of his aides said officials have tried to walk a straight and narrow path with the project.

“We don’t think we’re to blame for the delay,” said John Schwarze, community planning chief for the county.

“The staff believes this case is going to court no matter who wins. We want to make sure every t is crossed and i is dotted.”

Schwarze said the supervisors’ action on the tract map has been “frozen in time” until such issues as zoning and use permits are resolved by the planning commission. He said those items cannot be acted on by commissioners until all environmental questions are answered. Supervisors may act on the map by September, he said.

Schwarze denied that any of Wojciechowski’s letters or reports have been lost.

“We’ve gotten a lot of letters for and against, a full box load of stuff,” he said.