Council Leans to Concessions for Developers of Oakmont View

Despite vehement homeowner opposition, the Glendale City Council on Monday appeared to lean toward granting some concessions to the builder of a hillside development that has been stalled by a shortage of a quarter-million cubic yards of earth.

Even though the shortage was caused by the developer’s miscalculation, Mayor Jerold Milner said the city must consider ways to complete the controversial Oakmont View subdivision--including trucking in the needed dirt, grading it off the hillside or a combination of the two--or face a lawsuit by the developer.

“We have a responsibility to be concerned about the ultimate result and how much money it will cost us in court,” Milner said. “We feel we must help find the right solution.” The council’s decision on which alternative will be permitted is expected June 20.

The developer has threatened to sue because the city has withheld issuing a grading permit even though the developer has complied with all of the city’s ordinances and laws, officials said.

Homeowners Threaten Legal Action

But some homeowners are threatening legal action of their own. They have urged the council to reject all plans to truck in dirt or grade a ridge.

“You seem to be more concerned about what you owe the developer than what you owe your constituents,” said Al Hoffman, one of more than 100 residents who attended the special meeting Monday. He said the builders “can develop on what they’ve got left.”

What Gregg-Gangi Development Co. of Glendale has left is a six-acre hole, or pit, as the residents call it, on which they plan to create the last 25 view home sites in the 197-lot subdivision. To do that, they need to fill the hole with about 25,000 truckloads of dirt.

They propose to get the dirt by cutting up to 70 feet off a prominent ridge that separates the Oakmont View and Oakmont Woods subdivisions in the Verdugo-Woodlands area.

City officials said the grading project would create “a highly visible scar” that could be seen from La Crescenta Valley and Verdugo Canyon.

Grading Permit Withheld

Hundreds of residents protested when they learned about the developer’s plans last year. In the wake of the outcry, the council in July unanimously ordered the city engineer to withhold a grading permit for the project.

The city and the developer have been working since to consider other alternatives for getting dirt to the site, such as bringing it in by truck from other sites. But even that plan has met with heavy opposition from residents, who object to the prospect of dirt-filled trucks rumbling through the steep streets of their neighborhood of expensive homes. Neighborhood groups are warring with one another over which routes the trucks should travel.

Representatives of some homeowner groups said Monday that they are willing to put up with trucks in their neighborhood in order to protect the ridge. Others, however, said they are ready to sacrifice the ridge rather than risk dangerous truck traffic on their streets.

City Manager Dave Ramsay said Monday that trucking in the amount of dirt needed to fill the hole “would take 1 1/2 years and probably longer,” even with trucks passing through neighborhoods every eight minutes. Grading the hillside, in contrast, could be completed in two to three months, he said.

Ramsay said an alternative proposed by residents that dirt be hauled to the construction site by conveyor belt was rejected by the developer as too costly.

Engineers estimate that scraping the dirt off the ridge would cost about $1.60 a cubic yard. Trucking it in would run about $2 a cubic yard. In contrast, Ramsay said hauling dirt by conveyor belt would cost about $9 a cubic yard, or $2.5 million for the project.

“It would take $1 million alone just to set it up,” Ramsay said. “Developers were unwilling to pursue that any further.”

Few Alternatives

Council members said Monday that they are left with few alternatives. They ordered city staff to prepare resolutions permitting the trucking, grading or both, on which they will act at the June 20 meeting.

A fourth alternative, which would do nothing further with the project, was also proposed but is not considered viable, Milner said. “That would not be the end of it,” he said, referring to potential litigation by the developer. “We would like to find the least negative impact to complete the subdivision.”

Several residents complained that homeowners will ultimately pay the price for the builder’s mistake. “Now homeowners have to suffer by allowing another cut in the mountain or trucking dirt up the hill,” said Gregory Scott, a Menlo Drive resident. “This should not be the city’s problem.”

Milner countered: “The legalities do exist. We do have to resolve the problem.”

When the city approved the subdivision in 1976, all of the dirt needed to complete the project was to come from the 65-acre site. However, Gregg-Gangi notified the city in 1986 that it was short by about 250,000 cubic yards of filling the hole, which ranges from 20 to 50 feet below the grade of Oakmont View Drive.

Lots Are Stepped

All of the lots in the subdivision are stepped to provide view sites for homes valued at $800,000 and up. Two cul-de-sac streets remain to be created on the site of the hole. Lots that would be created would be worth a total of at least $5 million, officials estimate.

Gregg-Gangi blamed the shortfall on a county requirement that dirt be used to create two drainage channels in an earlier subdivision. However, George Miller, public works director, said that project accounts for only half the missing dirt. “As far as we can tell, there was an error in calculation,” Miller said. “The tract should have been redesigned” when the developer was forced to use dirt elsewhere.

Some residents have accused Gregg-Gangi of deliberately creating the shortage to gain city permission to grade access into adjoining land the developer owns in the Oakmont Woods area. The grading project would open a roadway into 91 acres on the north side of the ridge. There is now no roadway into the area, and residents have vehemently fought plans in the past to build one.

Jean Rotter, an Oakmont Woods resident who said she has opposed Gregg-Gangi development plans for 17 years, asked the council Monday: “Do you feel as had, taken, cheated and screwed as we do? I can’t believe the city and people have let this get so out of control.”

Jack Hilts, president of the Deer Canyon/Oakmont Homeowners Assn., which has relentlessly fought grading on the ridge, charged that the developer “wants to be rewarded by the City Council” for his errors in calculations. “How do we know he won’t lose control again?” he asked.

The developer maintained Monday that cutting the ridge is the least disruptive way of completing the subdivision. In a letter to the council, developers John L. Gregg and Salvatore F. Gangi said they plan to landscape the project “to cover all visible scarring within one to two years of grading.”