Hillside Plan Brings Home Old Squabble : Development: Some Hollywoodland residents say a proposal for four houses could worsen inadequate fire access to a tinder-dry area.

In what has become a contentious squabble underscoring development controversies in the Hollywood Hills, Hollywoodland residents have challenged plans to build four homes and an access road on a steep canyon ridge near Griffith Park.

Councilman Michael Woo has sided with Hollywoodland homeowners in opposing the plans, prompting an architect representing developers to threaten the city with a lawsuit for unfairly thwarting development.

The Hollywoodland Homeowners Assn., representing 535 homeowners, says the additional development on Lambert Place would worsen already inadequate fire access to the tinder-dry area. Also, a nearby intersection would have to be widened to allow access by fire trucks, necessitating removal of parts of two existing homes and adversely affecting local residents, they say.

Residents and hikers also are upset because the project would cut into a small parcel of Griffith Park.

Because the development plans have been approved by the city Planning Department, an appeal by the homeowner association and a group of local residents is set to go to the full City Council next Wednesday for a vote.

Last week, as acting chairman of the council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee, Woo recommended that the council uphold the appeal, usually an indication that a project will be stopped in its tracks.

Developers say their plans not only conform to existing city codes as outlined in a Hollywoodland interim control ordinance, but actually would make the area more accessible to firefighters by paving a new road that cuts across the face of the hill. Also, they say the homes would be built of non-combustible materials, and have sprinklers.

Homeowners disagree, citing a report by their fire-safety consultant, former state Fire Marshal Philip C. Favro.

Favro reported that firetrucks would still have a nearly impossible time getting through the area, even with the road, and the already “grossly substandard” response times would be made worse.

What’s more, Favro said, the homes would create more potential for fires from discarded smoking materials, barbecues, power mowers and other heat-producing tools. “ . . . developers are tempting fate,” he said, “by building deep into scenic canyons and brushy hillsides.”

At issue is not only whether the homes would affect firefighting access, but whether their construction would require cutting into already existing homes, Woo said.

“There is clearly a need for wider streets to enable emergency vehicles to reach homeowners in distress,” Woo said. “But in this case, I just couldn’t support the project because street widening literally would have had to take out portions of people’s houses.”

In addition, Woo said, some planning officials disagreed with the staff determination to approve the plans. “So I felt I was on clear ground . . . in opposing the project,” Woo said.

The developers, angered by Woo’s position, say he is unfairly siding with the homeowner association because of political pressure.

Nick Seierup, an architect representing the developers, said they “are considering a lawsuit against the city and have engaged a real estate attorney.

“The real issue here is that local homeowners are really only interested in thwarting any further development in the area,” Seierup said. “It’s the old ‘I’m in the rowboat, let’s push from the shore’ mentality.

“There is a civil rights issue here, the right to build,” Seierup said. “To be denied your right to build your dream home when it is built according to code . . . is frustrating and may in fact prove to be illegal.”

Of the two existing homes that would be affected, Seierup said that the only things that would need to be removed were “an illegally built stairway and a three-foot-high retaining wall that is also illegally built.”

Woo acknowledged the possibility of a lawsuit but noted that, in such a rancorous land-use argument, either side could sue if they do not get their way, particularly with regard to such lucrative developments as those in the few buildable lots remaining in the Hollywood Hills.

Bruce Mahler, a Hollywoodland resident and a leader of the homeowner association, said fire safety is the major issue involved.

“Construction of these homes would create an unacceptably dangerous situation in which human lives and property would be put at grave risk,” Mahler said. He noted that a fire in the hills destroyed a home five years ago and almost spelled disaster because trucks had trouble getting to the site quickly enough.

Capt. John S. Holloway, commander of the city Fire Department’s hydrant unit, said the homes would create too much of a burden on existing firefighting capabilities and that “based on response distance from existing fire stations, fire protection is considered inadequate.”