Angry Bel-Air Residents Get Developer to Restore Part of Graded Ridge

Members of a Bel-Air homeowners association and the developer of a $250-million residential site struck an unusual deal Wednesday that will require the development firm to rebuild part of a mountain ridge that it lopped off without any notice to area homeowners.

The ridge at the top of Hoag Canyon, considered one of the most pristine sections of the Santa Monica Mountains, was shaved down by about 200 feet during the past year. Shaken hillside homeowners, who spent eight years negotiating with the developer to ensure that most of the mountain ridge would remain intact, discovered later that the developer modified his project to allow for the extended grading.

The discovery led to more than six months of often bitter negotiations between attorneys for the Roscomare Valley Assn. and the developer of the 284-home Bel-Air Crest project, located south of Mulholland Drive, just east of the San Diego Freeway.

Under the agreement, approved Wednesday by the Los Angeles Planning Department’s Advisory Agency, Goldrich & Kest Industries of Culver City agreed to rebuild the ridge by an average of 20 feet in height and to provide extensive landscaping to reduce the visibility of the project for hillside homeowners. The developer also agreed to pay for lawyer and engineering fees, estimated at $40,000 by the homeowners association.

Saving as Much as Possible

“It doesn’t repair all of the damage done, but under the circumstances, it was the best agreement we could come up with,” said writer-producer Mark Slade, head of the Save Hoag Canyon Committee. “We just want to save as much of it as we could.”

Warren Breslow, general partner of Goldrich & Kest, said he was “satisfied” with the agreement. “At times it’s been very difficult for us, but the spirit of compromise prevailed,” he said.

The battle over the canyon erupted in May, 1987, when affluent homeowners along Linda Flora Drive noticed that the grading of the mountain ridge seemed unusually deep. Their discovery came almost two years after they agreed not to oppose the multimillion-dollar development, as long as all but nine homes were placed behind the mountain ridge, out of the line of sight of the hillside residents.

But when the homeowners took their complaints to city planners, they discovered that just three months after the original tentative tract map for the development was approved, the developers requested a series of modifications. These, it turned out, greatly increased the amount of grading on the ridge--and increased the number of million-dollar view lots on the top of the canyon from nine to 29.

In what city planning officials called an “oversight,” no notice of the modifications was sent to area residents. The modifications were approved by city planners, who said later that they were not aware of any concerns “about preserving this rather remote area in its natural condition.”

As a result of the Hoag Canyon case, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who was involved in the original negotiations over the development, has introduced a proposal that would require city planners to notify homeowners within 500 feet of any new development of any public hearings for project modification.

Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, said that the agency has placed Hoag Canyon at the top of its priority list for acquisition as public land and is currently appraising about 400 acres of the mountain area.

“No one is very happy with this, but it’s all we could get,” said character actor Don Gordon, one of the homeowners involved in the dispute. “You can’t really replace something that’s already been destroyed.”