WILL JACKSON’S GATES GET THE GATE?

Pop singer Jermaine Jackson’s personalized replicas of the czarist-era St. Petersburg gates at his home in a secluded residential area of Brentwood have become victims of a neighborhood feud over aesthetics.

The 16-foot arched $250,000 iron gates, which some neighbors have called “ostentatious displays of wealth,” “distasteful” and “totally different,” must be cut down by half under a recent interpretation by the Board of Zoning Appeals. Jackson’s gold-tipped wrought-iron fence, which sits atop a concrete wall, averages nearly 11 feet high.

Calling Jackson’s community “a tight little island,” Jackson’s attorney, former City Councilman Arthur K. Snyder, said Jackson’s real error was his failure to apprise the neighbors of his plans.

“Jermaine thought the gates would complement his property and the whole neighborhood,” said Snyder. He said the required reduction would essentially destroy the gates fronting the 1.9-acre estate on Oakwood Drive, a private street.

The property, once owned by Johnny Weissmuller, includes grottoes, waterfalls and ponds. Snyder said these “attractive nuisances” needed protective fencing after Jackson cleared overgrown hedges and other vegetation.

Jackson had cited personal security as well as aesthetic reasons for building the nonconforming walls and gates. (In an incident in June, 1985, the Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad removed an inert hand grenade found on the singer’s property during a party.)

Jackson failed to apply for a variance before building the walls in 1985, and a local homeowners association complained to the city.

The zoning code specifies a 3 1/2-foot height limit for walls and fences and gates that are not set back at least 15 feet from the street, but zoning administrators are allowed to make interpretive judgments as well as granting variances.

In January, Zoning Administrator Frank Eberhard denied Jackson a variance; his interpretive ruling required that Jackson reduce his front fence to 6 feet and blacken the gold trim on the gates and fence. Jackson appealed.

In the final ruling late last month, Zoning Commissioner Nikolas Patsaouras said that since other residences in the area also violate the code, Jackson would be allowed to have the gates and fence 8 feet tall and keep the gold trim. Jackson has six months to reduce the fence and gates to 8 feet, Patsaouras said.

Philip Reynolds, attorney for the Oakmont Homeowners Assn., said he was “not completely satisfied” with the ruling and that, even reduced, Jackson’s walls would be “out of character with the neighborhood and a detriment to the rustic area.” Reynolds acknowledged that some of the residences had hedges also over the legal limit.

Conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife, Nancy, who own property across the street from Jackson’s, have supported Jackson’s appeals.

“They were concerned that Jackson not be unduly imposed upon by going against a collective aesthetic judgment,” according to G. Grant Gifford, Mehta’s attorney.

Gifford said the Mehtas “were as concerned about the principles involved . . . as the aesthetics.”

Jackson may even consider relocating, Snyder said. “There’s a constant stream of problems a person in his position confronts. If he’s unable to get the fencing he needs, he may move.”

On an extended concert tour of the country, Jackson was unavailable for comment.