Woodland Hills Tract : Building Halt Ordered on Substandard Hillside Lots

The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to place a limited building moratorium on about 2,000 substandard lots in a hillside area of Woodland Hills.

Without opposition, the council adopted the recommendation of its Planning and Environment Committee that would require owners of the lots to apply to the city for permits to build homes on them.

The ordinance will be effective for a year from its expected approval by Mayor Tom Bradley.

Councilman Marvin Braude requested the moratorium to allow the city to curtail a recent building boom in the 1.5-square-mile Girard Tract next to the Woodland Hills Country Club. The tract was subdivided in the 1920s into small lots intended for weekend retreats.

Divided Into Minimum Size

The lots were divided into the minimum size allowed at that time, 3,500 square feet. The city’s zoning now requires that lots be at least 5,000 square feet.

Although the houses originally built on the tract were tiny, three-room cabins, developers have recently been constructing large homes there, Braude said.

Leaders of a Woodland Hills homeowner group say they fear that continued development of the lots would cause crowding and stress on sewers, roads and fire services.

During the year of the moratorium, the city will work on a plan for orderly development of the tract, said Brad Rosenheim, a field deputy for Braude.

Rosenheim said he expects that plan to specify a minimum lot size needed to build a home and recommend methods such as lot consolidation to implement the plan.

“We’re not intending to prohibit people from developing those parcels but to make them conform to lot size and general topography of the area,” he said.