Council OKs Restrictions on Hillside Development

After more than 10 years of delay, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved an ordinance designed to limit hillside building and help preserve what is left of the natural topography of Los Angeles.

The development law--based roughly on the principle, “the steeper the slope, the lower the density”--will affect 16 areas in the city. Most are in the Santa Monica Mountains, the northwestern fringes of the San Fernando Valley and other pockets scattered in the Hollywood Hills, Mt. Washington and Highland Park.

Mayor Tom Bradley has said he will sign the measure into law.

Rejecting a less restrictive proposal advanced by Councilman Hal Bernson, the council also signaled that it may consider still more stringent hillside regulations. A proposal to prohibit development on ridge lines was referred to committee for further study, as was the possible expansion of the new ordinance.

Such a measure was first considered by the City Council in 1976. At the time, citywide enactment was postponed and the measure was sent back to committee. However, the council agreed to test the ordinance in three areas represented by Councilman Marvin Braude: Brentwood-Pacific Palisades, Bel-Air and Woodland Hills.

‘This Is Fair’

“I can tell you this is fair and that it works,” Braude told the council. “It has stood the test of time, geologists and developers.”

The ordinance was proposed this time by council members Pat Russell and Mike Woo. All 12 members of the council who were present Wednesday voted in favor.

The ordinance only applies to areas that are zoned for one unit per acre, or “minimum-density” zones. Under the ordinance, more acreage would be required per house if the slope exceeds a 15% grade, increasing proportionately according to the steepness of the slope.

For example, if the grade was 15% or less in the minimum-density zone, 100 homes could be built on 100 acres of land. With each 1% increase in slope, the number of homes per 100 acres would decrease by about three. On 100 acres of land on a 33% slope, for example, the formula would allow only 49 homes to be be built. Without the ordinance in effect, developers can build 100 homes on 100 acres of hillsides regardless of the degree of steepness.

On grades of 49% or greater, the ordinance would allow only five homes per 100 acres.

The effect, city planners say, is to allow for development while at the same time protecting hillsides and canyons from bulldozers.

Frank Eberhard, the city’s chief zoning administrator, said in an interview that a “whole plethora” of housing tracts built in the Santa Monica Mountains in recent years would have resulted in fewer homes and more open space if the ordinance had been in effect.

Builders Represented

Efforts by the building industry to water down the ordinance were not successful. Builder representatives at the council session Wednesday spoke in favor of the less restrictive version of the ordinance proposed by Bernson.

Bernson urged the council, unsuccessfully, to adopt a formula that, in his words, was “less punitive” to builders and would allow “slightly” more density. In his plan, the formula would become applicable on grades of 20%. At a 33% slope, for example, it would allow 57 homes on 100 acres.

To prevent altering natural skylines, Bernson also proposed the prohibition of grading along the top of hills (except for “geologically corrective measures” or public utilities) and a ban on residential structures built so that they project above the ridge line. Several council members voiced support for these ideas, which are expected to be reconsidered after study in committee.

Alternate Plan

Bernson’s alternate plan was endorsed by the Building Industry Assn. A licensed land surveyor, Paul Cook, called the Russell-Woo plan “simplistic” and unfair.

“Its birth comes from the drawbridge mentality of people who already live in the hillsides and want to keep them open,” Cook said.

However, Brian Moore, a spokesman for the Hillside Federation, a coalition of 50 groups in the Santa Monica Mountains, told the council that 10 years’ experience with the ordinance in Pacific Palisades, Bel-Air and Woodland Hills shows that “developers are able to build successfully and profitably.”

Councilman Joel Wachs asked the planning committee to study whether “very low density” zones should also be covered by the ordinance. Those zones allow two homes to the acre.