Stormy Hearing Expected for Topanga Summit Project : Development: After 14 years, opponents hope to finally quash the oft-resurrected plan to build hundreds of homes and a golf course.

Topanga activists by the busload are expected to show up at a county planning commission hearing today to argue the pros and cons of a controversial development project that simply refuses to die.

In the 14 years since developers first proposed building hundreds of estates and a golf course in Summit Valley at the top of Topanga Canyon, the project has been killed, resurrected and jeopardized again. Longstanding feuds among local residents over the project have become so rancorous that it is considered to be among the most contentious development battles in Los Angeles County history.

Today, the county’s Regional Planning Commission once again is set to step into the middle of it all, to begin deliberating the future of the project in its latest incarnation, Canyon Oaks. The developers, the Canyon Oaks Estates limited partnership, are eager to finally get to work on the 257-acre project, which would include a private golf course and sites for nearly 100 mansion-sized homes in a gated community.

And opponents are eager to kill off the project once and for all.

“Certainly, there are a variety of opinions, and we expect to hear many of them,” said Don Culbertson, supervising regional planner for the planning commission.

Indeed.

Both sides, for and against, have for years organized meetings and letter-writing campaigns to lobby county officials and garner public support. Today, they plan to bus their forces down to the County Hall of Administration for a show of force.

At least two busloads of opponents, many from the Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community, intend to speak, contending the project is environmentally unsound and out of place in an area known for its bucolic serenity. On Monday, dozens of protesters gathered at the proposed development site, and complained that developers’ efforts to reduce project-related grading and to re-vegetate the edges of the golf course to make it look more natural are not enough.

“This project has destructive environmental impacts not only on Topanga, but all of Los Angeles,” said Susan Petrulas Nissman, chairwoman of the association. “We have quite a bit of support and we intend to show up in force to oppose this project.”

But many other residents say the association and other opponents are a vocal minority who do not represent the views of most Topangans.

“My property looks right down on the property and I can’t think of anything nicer I’d like to see down there,” Joan Cooper said. “The tradition is 10 opposing to one supporting this, but that is only because opposition is so much more vocal. Topanga is like a Mafia town; there are a few bullies opposed to everything, and there is so much threat and intimidation and polarization.”

Cooper said developers have bent over backward to accommodate the community, and have promised to invest $500,000 for local community projects such as trails maintenance or a recreation center.

The project, originally known as the Montevideo Country Club, was rejected by county supervisors in April, 1991. But in a stunning about-face, it was resurrected for reconsideration three months later, and was still pending when the project’s initial developers declared bankruptcy. Partner Diane Disney Lund--daughter of Walt Disney--took over control of the project but died last month of cancer.

Project manager Charles J. McLaughlin said, however, that the partnership has made transition plans so the project can continue on course.

Culbertson said the county’s Department of Public Works has recently come out in opposition to some aspects of the proposed project, particularly the location of two man-made lakes that officials say could create mudslides. As a result, he said, project developers will be given several weeks to revise their plans before county planners vote to approve or reject Canyon Oaks.