Mulholland Rally Protests Building Limits

About 250 people rallied at a Mulholland Drive scenic overlook in Studio City on Sunday to protest plans to strictly limit what property owners may build within a half-mile of the roadway, which meanders along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains.

After 16 years of study, Los Angeles city officials last September unveiled a controversial set of proposals to preserve the majestic vistas along the portions of Mulholland Drive within the city and to protect the public’s access to them.

If adopted, the proposals would control such things as grading and the height, color and landscaping of new homes near the scenic drive between the Hollywood Freeway in Studio City and Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Woodland Hills.

The proposals, contained in one ordinance, also would establish a development review board that would have authority to rule on building requests. Violators would be subject to fines.

In recent months, the doubts of mountaintop landowners and those living on or near Mulholland have escalated into a crescendo of opposition against what they see as an unwarranted and unnecessary intrusion on their property rights.

“We are being accused of being exclusionists and racists,” George Coloyannidis, a leader of the group that opposes the restrictions, said at the rally. “We do not intend, however, to become a trash bin for the rest of the city.”

The opposition, which collectively calls itself “Hands Off Mulholland,” says the city’s plans will coax more people from elsewhere in Los Angeles to visit their neighborhood, leading to increased vandalism, litter and traffic.

“If you want a better idea of what this means, look at that,” said resident Barry Holmes, pointing to gang scrawlings and other graffiti on a sign identifying the Fryman scenic overlook.

The group of residents, including actor Richard Dreyfuss, marched northeast a mile from the intersection of Mulholland Drive and Laurel Canyon Boulevard to the overlook, holding balloons and carrying signs.

“They’re out of their heads,” said Lotte Melhorn, a member of the City Council-created citizens’ advisory committee, which drafted the proposed ordinance.

“The fact that much of this city is abused at night does not penetrate these peoples’ heads,” said Melhorn, who has lived near Mulholland for more than 30 years. “Mulholland is something for everyone to enjoy.”

“We’re trying to prevent throwing out the baby with the bathwater,” Jerry Daniel, another advisory committee member, said. “We want to protect the natural beauty of Mulholland by giving the city some say in what’s built throughout the corridor.”

The earliest conception of the road was as a scenic parkway. It was proposed in 1913 by William Mulholland, chief engineer of the city Water and Power Department, as a special road for pleasure driving along the mountain ridge.

In the late 1960s, legislation was introduced in the state Assembly to appropriate money to build a freeway along Mulholland, which stretches 55 miles from the Hollywood Freeway to the Pacific. But the bill never passed.

In 1971, the City Council created the advisory committee that 16 years later has completed the plan that prompted Sunday’s rally. The ordinance would replace three paragraphs added to the zoning law in 1974, which say that the road’s natural look should be maintained and that grading and the number of cross streets be limited.

A more detailed ordinance is necessary because developers and city planners alike need to know what can and cannot be built along road, said Joseph Edminston, director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which supports the proposed law.