Sally Over Alley Over : Back-Yard Pools and Shrubs Are Home Safe

Los Angeles officials have decided they won’t take the plunge and make Sherman Oaks homeowners dig up back-yard swimming pools because of two new apartment houses.

The city abandoned plans Monday to force two dozen families to surrender portions of their back yards so a 20-foot-wide alley can be built to serve new apartments on Fulton Avenue.

Residents living between Fulton and Longridge avenues south of the Ventura Freeway had been ordered by the city to make room for the new alley by removing pools, sheds and landscaping from a 10-foot back-yard strip by Friday.

Officials said they will rescind that order and take steps to erase the alley from city maps--which for 50 years have shown the back-yard strip as an easement for an alley.

“My pool can stay,” Longridge Avenue resident Geraldine Cronin said happily after a 1 1/2-hour meeting with representatives of the city and the developers.

Cronin’s pool extends an inch into the alley easement. A private contractor had estimated that it would cost $8,000 to rip it out and fill in the hole.

Three of Cronin’s neighbors also had back-yard pools targeted for removal by the city. Others had fences, landscaping, garage additions or workshops that protruded into the future alley’s right of way.

“We’re all very relieved,” said Rick Roberts, a 15-year resident of the neighborhood who had been told to uproot a dense wall of 40-year-old trees and shrubs behind his home.

Roberts said his rear landscaping will be important in helping screen from his family’s view a new 3-story, $3-million apartment behind his house.

As part of Monday’s agreement, the apartment’s developer promised to reduce the number of proposed rental units from 31 to 22. He also agreed to limit the rear height of the project and redesign it so that windows and balconies do not look down on the property of Roberts and other residents.

“You don’t want to build a project that causes trouble,” said Ira David Handelman, a representative of the builder, Garden Homes Associates. “The developer doesn’t want to cause problems. We want to protect the privacy of the neighbors.”

The developer of the second apartment project--a 3-story, 21-unit development--will take steps to ensure the privacy of nearby homeowners, said Bruce Landau, an attorney representing HQC-Fulton Associates.

“We’re discussing balcony locations and such things as 30-foot-tall trees,” Landau said after Monday’s meeting. He said two homeowners will be asked to give up a maximum of 13 inches of their back yards to allow for construction of a driveway between the new apartments and an existing alley.

The alley agreement is a trade-off between homeowners and city traffic engineers, who have opposed new apartment driveways connecting with busy Fulton Avenue, said Eric Roth, an aide to Sherman Oaks-area City Councilman Mike Woo.

“Maybe after this is finished, we’ll all celebrate with a barbecue at Mrs. Cronin’s pool,” said Roth, who organized the compromise meeting.