Sepulveda Separatists Clamor for New Identity : Communities: Homeowners seek to secede from what they see as a high-crime east side. They want their area to be known as North Hills.

Some Sepulveda homeowners want to secede and rename their neighborhood west of the San Diego Freeway “North Hills” to disassociate it from what they call the crime-plagued neighborhood to the east.

Organizers of the secession campaign argue that the San Diego Freeway forms a natural dividing line between two very distinct communities, and so the areas should bear different names.

West of the freeway, the separatists say, Sepulveda consists almost exclusively of single-family dwellings, but east of the freeway the streets are lined with apartment buildings, condominiums and high-density business developments.

But some residents of Sepulveda’s east side charge that the secession movement’s leaders have mischaracterized their home.

Val Rowsey, an opponent of the secession who has lived in east Sepulveda for 33 years, said much of the territory--like the area that would make up the proposed North Hills--consists of single-family dwellings, many much larger and more expensive than the average home west of the freeway.

Only along Sepulveda Boulevard are apartment buildings and condominiums the norm, she said.

Rowsey called the secession drive a plot by real estate brokers and developers to lower property values in east Sepulveda so that they can buy inexpensive houses there, which they will tear down to make way for new apartments.

Michael Ribons, a real estate broker who has participated in a petition drive to bring the name change before the Los Angeles City Council, denied that the goal of the movement was to affect property values.

“It has to do with community pride,” he said. “People are sick and tired of being associated with three blocks east of the freeway that the city can’t get a handle on, with prostitution, and streets that have been shut down.”

A spokesman for the Devonshire Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, which patrols the area, said statistics comparing crime in the two areas were unavailable.

But some Sepulveda neighborhoods east of the freeway have been plagued with crime problems, including prostitution and drive-by drug sales.

Last year, in an effort to crack down on drive-by drug deals, police erected traffic barricades in the streets of two neighborhoods in east Sepulveda.

“We are not saying that our area is better; we are saying that there are two distinct neighborhoods,” Ribons said.

Most west Sepulveda residents, he said, do not identify with the area across the freeway.

So far, more than 1,300 people--more than one-third of the 3,500 that Ribons estimates are needed to bring the issue to a vote by the City Council--have signed the petition in favor of secession.

“It may seem on the surface that we are trying to disassociate ourselves from the problems,” but residents of the proposed North Hills may actually be more eager to help clean up the area once they rally behind the new name, he said.

“We are trying to get an identity,” he said. “We haven’t been successful in voicing our views because there hasn’t been community pride.”

But Rowsey said the entire community would be better served if it stuck together and tried to improve the small area that gives the territory a bad reputation.

“It’s a very snobbish move,” she said. “We are going to fight it.”

In 1987, a group of Canoga Park residents, concerned that the area’s name was lowering their property values and raising insurance rates, seceded to form the community of West Hills. The bitter struggle over the issue pitted neighbor against neighbor and caused major political problems for Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus, the area’s representative, who supported the move.