County Delays Plans to Enlarge Upper Topanga Canyon Flood Zone : Supervisors: Homeowners cheer the action, which gives them three years to come up with an alternative.

In a compromise measure with local homeowners, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Thursday to delay plans to enlarge the designated flood zone in upper Topanga Canyon so residents can come up with an alternative.

The compromise averts for three years what many Topanga residents said were Draconian restrictions proposed by the county Department of Public Works, which wanted the supervisors to expand the official flood-prone zone as a way of regulating development in the flood-prone area.

“Everyone here is dancing a jig--we’re absolutely delighted,” said Rabyn Blake, chairperson of the Topanga Canyon Floodplain Management Citizens Advisory Committee. The group was appointed by Supervisor Ed Edelman last March in response to a heavy outcry from residents against the proposed flood way.

After the 4-0 vote Thursday, Topanga residents applauded loudly, prompting Edelman to encourage them to continue their outburst of support. “Please keep clapping,” Edelman told the group. “We don’t often get that kind of applause.”

County public works officials have been working with Topanga residents since March, 1990, to designate the Upper Topanga Creek area as a flood way, or official flood-prone area. The creek is the primary drainage artery for the Topanga Canyon watershed.

Such a flood way would regulate development by preventing encroachment into the flood-hazard zone and averting potential flood-related problems, county officials said.

But many residences have been built along the banks of the creek, and local homeowners have resisted plans to be included in the flood way. They said the proposed boundaries of the flood way are too broad, encompassing many residences that are in no danger of flooding.

And they said such a flood way would impose too many restrictions on existing homeowners, and possibly lower their property values as a result. “You’re immediately blighted by the fact that your property has all these restrictions when rebuilding or remodeling,” Blake said.

Specifically, residents opposed to the proposed flood way said it would cause them bureaucratic nightmares, and in some cases make it impossible for them to rebuild their homes. If given permission to rebuild or remodel, they said, the restrictions could make it prohibitively expensive by forcing them to build their houses high above ground and take other precautionary measures.

Some opponents say the proposed flood way would put those living close to the creek in jeopardy, because it would allow proposed development projects farther upstream to be built. Those developments, including a proposed 97-house project known as Canyon Oaks, could increase both the water runoff into the creek and potential flood damage, imperiling local plant and animal life, opponents have said.

Under the compromise measure, the citizens advisory committee will be given three years to seek alternatives to a flood way that members said will be more sensitive to their concerns.

Area homeowners hailed the compromise because it requires that any new development project with more than five houses, such as Canyon Oaks, take extra measures to ensure that they do not increase storm water runoff, which could make the projects considerably more expensive and environmentally sensitive.

The supervisors initially considered a proposed flood way in September, 1990, but community members resisted. Eager to reach a compromise, Edelman organized the advisory committee, which last September submitted a 165-page alternative to the flood way.

The Public Works Department incorporated some of the advisory committee’s recommendations, but not enough to gain the support of the entire community. Blake and other advisory committee members said they were upset that the supervisors were moving ahead with plans to adopt the flood way, which was scheduled for an approval vote Thursday.

Within the past week, all sides met and forged the compromise. Current flood-zone restrictions will remain in effect during the next three years.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich abstained from voting, saying homeowners could possibly lose their homes under eminent domain procedures if county officials decide they are in a flood zone and need to be removed. “I fear this could be a means of taking property without just compensation,” Antonovich said after the vote.

The upper Topanga watershed consists of about 10,600 acres from the Los Angeles city boundary to the ridgeline of the Santa Monica Mountains.