Residents Unwilling to Take Fall for Sliding Agoura Hills Slope

Ina Geller looks up when she hears the spatter of raindrops at her Agoura Hills home.

She doesn’t look for overhead storm clouds, however.

Geller studies the 90-foot slope that lies a few steps from the front door of her town house. She searches for signs that tons of dirt, shrouded by sheets of black plastic, may be ready to break loose and slide into her home.

“I’ve been told that if there’s an avalanche or a mud slide, it happens just like that,” Geller said, snapping her fingers. “If it really started to come, I don’t know that there would be any escape.”

First Slide 8 Years Ago

Escape has been on the minds of Geller and the owners of 250 other Liberty Canyon condominiums since the slope first collapsed without warning eight years ago.

Since then, the hillside has been covered with protective plastic sheets, dug up, rebuilt and re-landscaped. But it won’t stop sliding.

The untamed slope has prompted a flurry of lawsuits. Homeowners say it could take years for a court to determine how much permanent repair will cost--and who will pay the bill.

Residents of the canyon, next to the Ventura Freeway about 10 miles west of the San Fernando Valley, contend that the slope was cut at too steep an angle for the area’s unstable adobe soil.

The problem is worsened, the residents claim, because the two condominium projects they live in were built close to the slope--one project at the top, the other at the bottom.

The first slope failure came during a late-night rainstorm in February, 1978. It undermined town house units at the top of the hill and unleashed mud to within inches of units at the bottom.

Homeowners Stacked Sandbags

Panicky homeowners piled sandbags around their homes and bought up every available roll of plastic sheeting in Agoura, covering the hill to protect it from further rain damage. Several dozen residents were evacuated by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

After that, homeowners spent nearly two years negotiating to have the slippage repaired. Their efforts were hampered because the lender for the construction loan had foreclosed on the builders of the projects. That lender was then acquired by another savings and loan.

Residents eventually persuaded Allstate Savings, which acquired the original lender, to finance the $1.2-million repair job.

Hillside Repaired

In 1980, hillside reconstruction experts peeled off the plastic tarps and removed tons of loose dirt from the slope. They then installed underground drains along the face of the hillside, returned the dirt and tamped it down, layer by layer.

The experts finished the job by planting hundreds of plants and trees to further stabilize the slope.

But Geller, who has lived at the bottom of the slope for 10 years, remembers what happened to that landscaping in 1983.

“During one storm, I stood at my window watching, and saw the hill and the plants just seem to melt,” Geller said. “They just dropped over and slid down.”

Out again came the sandbags and plastic tarps.

Tarp Remains in Place

They have since become permanent fixtures, to the dismay of homeowners living in the 155-unit Liberty Canyon Townhomes complex at the top of the slope and the 96-unit Rondell Condominiums project at the bottom.

The outline of the latest 350-foot-wide landslide can be seen beneath the glistening black tarps by thousands of Ventura Freeway motorists who travel past the Liberty Canyon Road exit daily.

Homeowners contend that a 1,000-foot length of the slope may be endangered, however. A proper repair of that area could cost $2 million to $3 million, they say.

When Allstate Savings balked in 1984 at paying to have the slope rebuilt a second time, the homeowners sued.

Frustrated residents of Rondell Condominiums met Saturday at the cabana in the center of their Mediterranean-style complex to discuss ways of speeding up their lawsuit. They approved a special assessment of $500 per unit to prepare for the litigation.

Paying for Damages

Stephen D. Roberson, the homeowners’ lawyer, said Allstate Savings’ successor, Sears Savings Bank of Glendale, surveyed the damaged hillside a year ago and “expressed an interest” in paying about $450,000 for repairs in exchange for being absolved of future problems with the slope.

“I’m concerned about letting them off the hook forever. Sears thinks that at some point they should be able to pay and get out of this mess,” he said.

“Sears didn’t develop the project, but they took over from other institutions that did develop it. So they’re on the hook.”

Roberson said he and lawyers for the Liberty Canyon Townhomes tract may amend their joint lawsuit against Sears Savings Bank to demand $5 million to compensate for lowered property values caused by the slide.

Bank Can’t Comment

Sears Savings Bank officials declined to discuss the hillside problem.

“The matter is in litigation and we’re not able to comment further at this time,” said Gerald E. Niemeyer, Sears Savings Bank president.

Mary Schaubert, a spokeswoman for Sears Savings Bank, confirmed that the 109-branch bank spent more than $1 million on the slope in 1980. The bank’s current assets total $7.1 billion, she said.

Both sides have apparently firmed up their arguments in case the slope issue goes to trial.

Homeowners say Sears Savings Bank officials have suggested that “gophers ran amok” on the hill, leaving holes that drained “over-watering” into the slope.

But homeowners contend that the bank has already admitted its liability for the slope repair by paying for the ill-fated 1980 repair.

Speedy Trial or Settlement

Condominium association leaders on both sides of the slope say they are hoping for a speedy trial, if not an even quicker settlement.

“We want more than a cosmetic fix,” said Kate Barry, president of the Liberty Canyon Townhomes Assn. “We’re prepared to go to trial if that’s what it takes.”

Drexell Tucker, president of the Rondell Condominium Assn., promised that homeowners will watch more closely the next time the slope is being repaired.

“We’re going to have good supervision every hour they work,” he said. “There’s not going to be anyone looking straight ahead.”