Council Panel OKs Plan to Preserve View From Mulholland

A Los Angeles City Council planning committee on Tuesday approved a plan designed to preserve the view from the city’s most famous scenic roadway, the 22 miles of Mulholland Drive.

The three-member Planning and Land Use Management Committee unanimously endorsed the Mulholland Scenic Parkway Specific Plan after more than two hours of debate between property owners, environmentalists and fans of the winding, two-lane road along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains.

The plan has been worked on for about 17 years by planners, politicians and a citizens advisory committee.

If adopted by the City Council, the plan would protect views of Los Angeles, the Santa Monica Mountains and the San Fernando Valley by regulating the height and location of buildings, fences and walls along Mulholland Drive from the Hollywood Freeway to Topanga Canyon Boulevard. It would prohibit grading and construction within 50 feet of the top of mountain ridges or within 100 feet of a stream bank.

Also, the plan proposed construction of a bicycle path and a trail along the roadside for pedestrians, joggers and equestrians.

Mountaintop landowners have criticized the plan for several years, saying it would rob them of their property rights by making thousands of parcels virtually impossible to develop.

But committee Chairman Hal Bernson said: “This city is definitely moving in the direction of preserving our open spaces. Let it be known that we are not going to allow areas like this to deteriorate.”

The committee, however, dodged the controversial question of whether the western portion of the road should be paved to alleviate traffic congestion. Encino residents have complained that their neighborhood streets are clogged with motorists who use them as alternatives to the crowded San Diego Freeway. They said paving Mulholland Drive from Encino Hills Drive--where Mulholland now becomes a rough dirt road--to Reseda Boulevard would help ease some of the traffic on those streets by routing some of it farther west into Tarzana.

The issue set off a bitter dispute between some Tarzana and Encino groups, leading to fistfights at one neighborhood meeting.

The committee instructed the city planning, engineering and transportation departments to study the paving issue and report back.

Some property owners complained to the committee that the plan would result in the area becoming more crowded with speeders, tourists and gang members, who now sometimes hold impromptu parties alongside the semi-rural road.