Lives Put in Limbo by Slide Dispute

‘Our money is all tied up in . . . a house nobody in their right mind would buy.’ --Shirley Gable, homeowner

In the 1970s, the grassy slopes that ascend into the Puente Hills in Hacienda Heights seemed the perfect place to build clusters of expensive homes, each affording a spectacular view of the San Gabriel Valley and mountains in the distance.

But three years ago, a slow-moving landslide twisted apart the foundations of three $200,000 homes on Montellano Avenue at the base of one slope. The owners received a settlement totaling more than $1 million and moved on, leaving behind only a pile of rubble and iron grillwork.

That was not the end of the slow-motion slide.

Today, the slide is creating gaping cracks in the foundations and walls of several other homes; one house in its path has been condemned, and an unknown number are threatened.

House Unmarketable

Shirley and Louis Gable are among those whose lives have been thrust into limbo by the ever-growing slide.

The Gables had planned to retire by now. But their luxury five-bedroom home sits in the path of the slide, and they are unable to sell it.

“My husband recently had quadruple bypass surgery and he would like to retire and move on, but we can’t,” said Shirley Gable, a real estate broker.

“We had hoped to move to Denver to be with relatives there, but we can’t do that. Our money is all tied up in this house, a house nobody in their right mind would buy.”

About three dozen homeowners and Los Angeles County are suing Great Western Financial Corp. and Great Western Savings, the neighborhood’s current developer, claiming that it is responsible for the drifting slide. The suits also name Financial Federation Inc., the original developer; the general contractor, and several subcontractors.

Cross-Complaint Filed

In response to the county’s suit, Great Western has filed a cross-complaint against the county, arguing that the county failed to ensure that the original developer followed building and land-grading regulations.

Despite extensive testing by geologists and soil engineers hired by the homeowners, the county and Great Western, the slide’s exact cause and scope are unclear.

In the coming months, attorneys for Great Western and the county say they hope to devise a plan to cure the problem.

Already, Great Western and the county have begun a joint effort to drain the ground water from beneath the hillside. After that, one solution may be to dramatically reshape the hill--a project that could mean bulldozing half a dozen or more homes along Heatherfield Drive above the slide.

If the movement is not stopped, Thomas Rubbert, an attorney for the homeowners, says that more than a dozen houses on Heatherfield and Montellano could be destroyed, and many others damaged.

Six Lawsuits Pending

Meanwhile, six separate lawsuits are moving slowly through the courts, five of them filed by Rubbert.

“Our feeling is that we are at the mercy of Great Western,” said Frank Brady, whose spacious four-bedroom home on Heatherfield Drive is likely to be torn down if Great Western restructures the hill below.

“We ask them if there is a plan, or do they know yet which homes are going to have to come out,” Brady said. “They just say, ‘No.’ We’ve heard everything from three homes to 12 homes will have to go.”

Brady, a retired A T & T executive, said he wants to spend his retirement years in his comfortable home perched high on the hill.

For him, the house was his American dream, “so beautiful and unique, like sitting on top of a 30-story apartment building. You just aren’t going to find this view anywhere else, and for me that’s kind of sad.”

While the homeowners, county and Great Western wrangle over who is to blame, Montellano Avenue at the base of the slide remains impassable, covered by more than a ton of dirt that the county and Great Western are reluctant to clean up.

No Cleanup Intended

Both sides say that moving the dirt could set off a chain reaction that could send even more earth and rock into the street and eat away an increasingly wider chunk of the hill.

Although geologists are still trying to determine how to stop the slide, they believe it was set off largely by natural ground water that was not properly diverted from beneath the steep slope before homes were built at its top and its base. The neighborhood was developed in the mid-1970s by Financial Federation, later bought out by Great Western.

Geologists for both sides say the neighborhood is underlain by an earthquake fault, and sits atop fill dirt that was packed into the high canyons to create flat parcels for houses and yards.

In addition, Rubbert says the former developers “squeezed three more homes onto Montellano Avenue” by cutting into the bottom of the slope to make flat parcels. That action, Rubbert says, further undermined the steep hill. The three homes were destroyed by the slide.

Geologists believe that the poor drainage, combined with the other factors, has gradually created a hillside of jelly-like earth that has moved 75 feet at its farthest point and is continually inching forward.

Liability Could Be High

According to county counsel John Krattli, Great Western’s liability easily could reach several million dollars. Krattli said the company is attempting to shift some of that burden to the county.

“It comes down to who has money, not who is really liable, and that’s why the county looms large in Great Western’s cross-complaint,” Krattli said. “They see the county’s money, the taxpayers’ money.”

However, Great Western contends that the county allowed homes to be built without enforcing its own building and grading regulations, and failed to repair a leaking county sewer that added moisture to the hill.

“We think a lot of the liability will be assigned to the county and to some of the original subcontractors,” said Roger Heyman, trial counsel for Great Western.

“The county was supposed to go out and inspect and make sure things were done right by the original developer . . . and they didn’t do that,” Heyman said. “ . . . We never would have built it the way it was built.”

Slope Exceeds Limits

Even Rubbert, who is not suing the county, said the county still has some explaining to do.

“The slope there is way too steep, much steeper than the county’s own written stipulations, and that’s a question the county has yet to answer,” Rubbert said.

In pretrial arguments, Great Western also has said that the 10-year statute of limitations has run out on its responsibility for the hillside, which was graded and shaped in the 1960s.

But Krattli said the county is confident Great Western will be found completely liable in the first of the trials, which is scheduled to begin next March in Pomona Superior Court.

“When Great Western took over, they knew they were stepping into the shoes of the original developer,” Krattli said. “They are in the unenviable position of facing strict liability for this situation.”

Remedial Work Begun

The county and Great Western hope that the $300,000 project they began this summer will help prevent further damage.

“The original builders are either bankrupt or dead or gone, and we feel a responsibility to do something about this,” said Great Western’s Heyman.

“The county . . . and Mr. Rubbert have been very cooperative in working out a way to de-water the hill and find a cure for the slide.”

But Rubbert said that he has been demanding since 1979 that the county and Great Western take action to control the slide. “And they wouldn’t raise a finger--they just let it go,” he said, until faced with the lawsuits.

One home at the base of the slide on Montellano Avenue was condemned last year and its owners were required to move, Krattli said. The yard is being used as a drainage area to remove ground water from deep beneath the hill.

In addition, the homeowners and Rubbert’s firm have spent about $165,000 on their own to test the earth beneath the slide, install devices to monitor land and water movement, and install tarps to protect the hill from winter rains.

Supervisor Visited Area

In response to residents’ increasingly bitter complaints over the lack of progress in stopping the slide, county Supervisor Pete Schabarum met with the homeowners in Hacienda Heights last month. But several residents said they were unhappy with Schabarum’s message.

“Pete Schabarum comes in here and all he does is use the time for a disclaimer,” Shirley Gable said.

“He tells us it’s not their fault and he doesn’t know when we’ll have an answer about what is going to happen here. It was a complete waste of time.”

“Three years is a long time to be waiting for an answer, and it’s really taken its toll on all of us,” agreed Judy Pearson, whose driveway is in the path of the slide.

“It’s depressing at times, and gets scary sometimes, too, when it’s raining cats and dogs,” Pearson said. “You wonder if your driveway is going to be there in the morning.”

Tom Hibbard, an aide to Schabarum, said the county is doing everything it can short of admitting liability for the slide. “It’s a standoff until the courts get around to saying who’s liable,” he said. “Of course, the residents are upset and we feel they have every right in the world to be upset with things.”

Trial Could Be Postponed

Homeowners still face a long wait. The first trial is not scheduled until next March, when Brady and his hilltop neighbors will seek damages from Great Western and previous developers, builders and subcontractors of the housing tract. Both sides say that the trial may be postponed if a solution to the slide is found and corrective work is well under way.

“We are willing to hold off on the lawsuit if they proceed in good faith to arrest the slide,” Rubbert said. “After all, these people really only want to save their homes.”

But even if the slide is stopped, Rubbert said, many residents will still be owed compensation for damage and devaluation of their homes.

Even homes that are not immediately threatened by the slide have dramatically decreased in value, some by as much as $100,000, he said. Many homes will always be devalued, he said, “because nobody can guarantee that the slide, once stopped, will never begin again.”

Tax Break Proposed

In response to such complaints, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has asked the county assessor’s office to look into ways to lower property taxes in the neighborhood.

Tony Nocella, whose home sits directly above the huge gap left by the slide, said a property tax break would be a welcome piece of news.

But, he said, nothing will make up for the years of worry that he said have affected his entire family.

“Imagine trying to live under these conditions, being told by our attorney to move out two years ago because our house was going to slide down the hill,” he said. “Of course we couldn’t move and pay both rent and the mortgage, so we stayed.”

Now, Nocella said, his fondest wish is that Great Western will come up with a way to save the hill without having to destroy his home.

“The way we feel right now is we don’t want to move,” he said. “My family loves the area, we love the hill, and we love our home.”