Even the horse corrals emit a perfumed aroma. : Finding Blight in Paradise

Of all the places in Los Angeles County I might normally search for urban blight, Hidden Hills would not be one of them. I would drive to the South-Central or eastern sections of L.A., where they have cornered the blight market, or even to the Westside, where they are working very hard to create new blight.

The only reason I would look for blight in Hidden Hills is if the word were redefined to include as blight any home worth less than $700,000. Even then, the place would barely qualify.

However, there were extenuating circumstances to my search the other day within the gated and guarded city of 2,000 privileged souls in the foothills northwest of Calabasas. It’s an emergency situation. If Hidden Hills doesn’t find blight soon, it won’t qualify for $80 million worth of tax money to solve a $5-million flood-control problem. Is it any wonder that they called on Mr. Blight?

Well, actually, they didn’t call on me. One person who lives in Hidden Hills suggested I might look into the situation. To use his words, “It’ll make you swallow your cigar.” So I looked into it, and there goes a $2 panatela.

It’s this way. The entire city of 2 square miles has declared itself a redevelopment area, a condition that might have gone unnoticed if Hidden Hills were composed of slums, rat-infested tenements and a downtown which has deteriorated into Skid Row bars and whorehouses. Your typical urban America.

Blight abounds in those kinds of places and no one in his right mind would question the need to redevelop. At least, for God’s sake, paint the whorehouses.

Unfortunately, however, Hidden Hills is composed only of homes worth from $700,000 to $2 million, and there is no downtown, much less the aforementioned iniquities that normally attend a downtown.

The community is a horse-oriented paradise with wide, tree-lined streets, 30 miles of bridle trails and elaborate estates. I saw a barn worth more than half the houses in Encino and all the houses in Chatsworth.

As a result, when Hidden Hills declared itself a redevelopment area and proposed a plan that would divert $80 million worth of property-tax money from the county to its new redevelopment agency, there were naturally some questions raised.

A redevelopment attorney named Murray Kane called it crazy, ludicrous, immoral, illegal and a flagrant abuse of redevelopment, among other things. Then he filed suit to block the project, which he has thus far managed to do.

Wayne Lemieux, who is representing Hidden Hills, said that the money is needed to control flooding in the pastoral setting. The flood-control project would cost $5 million. I am not a redevelopment lawyer or a very good mathematician, but it seemed to me that left $75 million unaccounted for.

When I asked Lemieux what about the other $75 million, he explained patiently that was only a maximum figure placed in the plan for technical reasons and that the extra money would surely be returned to the county. Oh.

“We want $5 million for flood control, that’s all,” he said somewhat plaintively. Then he added, “And maybe some nickel and dime items.”

Kane accused Hidden Hills of trying to perpetrate a massive public rip-off and said that if the community wants flood control, it can damned well form an assessment district and let its wealthy homeowners pay for it themselves.

All of this, however, may be a moot point. In order to establish a redevelopment project, a city has to show blight. At one time, what Lemieux calls “a horrible flooding problem” might have qualified. But since the first of the year, the law has been changed to exclude flooding. New blight is needed here if Hidden Hills is going to get its money.

Enter Mr. Blight.

I probably know more about blight than anyone writing for a newspaper today. I was born in blight, raised in blight and have spent a good part of my career in blight. It was only natural that I search for blight in Hidden Hills.

I spent an hour wandering streets with names like Little Hollow Lane and Paradise Valley Road. I drove past Cozy Corner Ranch and an estate with a sign in front that proclaimed it “The Bess Place in Town.” Down-home cute amid the rural opulence.

It is not easy to find blight in a heaven like Hidden Hills. A patch of weeds off Clear Valley Road hardly qualifies. Even the horse corrals emit a perfumed aroma. I was about to give up when I saw it.

Somehow, an old dog had gotten past the guard. He trotted up Long Valley Road, sniffed around and then did what dogs are inclined to do in less favored environs. Right across from Cozy Corner Ranch.

I am pleased to report that Hidden Hills, thank God, now has blight of its own and qualifies for $80 million worth of tax money to build a $5-million flood-control project, and some other nickel and dime items. If the dog stays around long enough, blighting about with impunity, they may even get to keep the other $75 million. You know how the little blighters are.

(Good boy. Sit. Roll over. Blight! )