Topanga Canyon Development Rejected--12-Year Dispute Ends : Building: Supervisors vote 3 to 1 against the proposed Montevideo project: 97 houses, a golf course and tennis club. It was one of the longest-running zoning battles in county history.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Thursday ended one of the longest-running zoning disputes in county history when the board’s liberal majority rejected a plan to build 97 houses, a golf course and a country club in Topanga Canyon.

The 3-1 vote concluded a battle between a group of Topanga Canyon residents and the developer of the proposed Montevideo Country Club. The vote represented the first major victory for environmentalists since the balance of power on the board shifted when Gloria Molina took office on March 8.

More than 100 Topanga residents, who bused in to pack the board room, leaped to their feet and cheered after the vote, ending a battle that lasted more than 12 years and involved more than 30 hearings.

They attributed their victory not only to the switch in their district’s representation through court-ordered redistricting--from generally pro-development Supervisor Mike Antonovich to slow-growth advocate Supervisor Ed Edelman--but also to their own staying power.

“The arguments that we presented over the years have been cogent and logical,” said Bob Goldberg, who spoke before the board on behalf of the Topanga Town Council, a homeowners group.

During nearly two hours of testimony, speakers opposing the Montevideo project described the natural setting of the area at length and said the removal of 177 oak trees would destroy a forest. Others said the massive grading required for the golf course would level an entire ridgeline.

“It is basically a flatlands golf course that has no place in the Santa Monica Mountains,” Goldberg said.

A representative for developer Christopher R. Wojciechowski, a major financial contributor to campaigns of the conservative supervisors, said he would add the denial to a pending lawsuit against the county that alleges unreasonable delays in consideration of the project.

“If the decision is that a golf course is the wrong land use there, then somebody should have said it before,” said Wojciechowski’s attorney, Thomas F. Winfield. “In 12 years, nobody said that.”

Montevideo was proposed in 1978 for 257 acres in the scenic Summit Valley region of Topanga Canyon.

Original plans for the development called for 224 houses, a golf course, a tennis club, an equestrian center, a hotel and a 17,000-square-foot commercial center. Over the years, as county planning commissioners and local residents questioned the scope of the project, various portions were peeled away until it reached its current proposed size: 97 houses and a combined golf course and tennis club.

It was the kind of compromise that usually drew supervisors’ approval in the past. In fact, the latest proposal exceeded in many respects a list of 11 recommendations the board made in 1988, which the members said at that time would satisfy their concerns.

But in the interim, a decade of conservative control of the board was broken by a federal court ruling that district boundaries must be redrawn to create a Latino-dominated 1st District. The subsequent election of Molina, a City Council Democrat, and the switch of Topanga’s representative from Antonovich to Edelman both worked against a Montevideo approval.

Edelman led the vote against the project, saying that although it was better than its past incarnations it still would cause “a maximum destruction of the natural terrain.”

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn seconded the motion and Molina cast the third vote against the project. Supervisor Deane Dana cast the only vote for the project. Antonovich was absent Thursday.

A group of about 40 Montevideo supporters, most of whom live in a nearby housing tract called Viewridge Estates, said the development would increase their property values and the golf course would provide a moist fire break between the canyon’s wild brush and their homes.

“I look at that area now and nothing’s being done with it,” said Eric Best, who lives about 300 feet from the Montevideo property.

Between 1986 and 1990, Wojciechowski gave more than $66,000 to county supervisors, with nearly half that amount going to Antonovich. Dana received at least $15,000 and former Supervisor Pete Schabarum, whose 1st District seat went to Molina, received at least $21,000. Of the board’s liberals, Hahn received $500.