Section of Sepulveda Gets a New Name--North Hills

They are Sepulveda residents no longer.

After years of trying to divorce themselves from what they characterize as crime-plagued neighborhoods to the east, residents on the west side of the San Diego Freeway were officially recognized Monday as a new community.

They chose the name North Hills--smack in the flatlands of the central San Fernando Valley.

City Councilman Hal Bernson, who approved the name change after about 86% of the residents signed petitions supporting it, announced that the secession was official at a news conference on a street corner in the new community Monday.

The drive to change the name was begun by residents who said they were tired of having their quiet neighborhood of single-family homes identified with what they view as crime-ridden streets of apartments on the east side. Police have erected barriers across several streets on the east side in an attempt to curtail drive-by drug dealing.

Police statistics show that in 1990 the number of major crimes--murder, rape, robbery, burglary, auto theft and assault--was indeed greater east of the freeway than west of it, with 1,780 crimes reported on the east side in 1990 and 1,057 on the west. But the crime rate on the west side rose 2% in 1990, up from 1,027, even as the east side crime rate tapered off 1% from 1,808 in 1989.

The secession drive initially drew protests from residents on the east side, and then attracted residents of another community, asking if they could join in. The boundaries of the infant North Hills could expand northward as early as this summer if residents of southern Granada Hills decide to throw in with the new community.

No one is quite sure how the name North Hills was decided upon. Some guessed that it is a combination of Northridge and Granada Hills. Others said it might be taken from the North Hills Center shopping mall on Devonshire Street and Balboa Boulevard, although the plaza is outside the borders of the new community.

Residents said Monday that the new name was not born of snobbery but out of a desire to have their own community. They said that the two sides of the San Diego Freeway are different in character and that a name of their own will build community spirit.

“It’s community pride,” Joseph Abadi said at a brief ceremony Monday.

“It’s a feeling of satisfaction that it’s finally done,” said Michael Ribons, a real estate broker who coordinated the secession movement and financed a large portion of the petition drive.

But whether the new name will make any difference with the post office remains to be seen.

Residents eventually want a new ZIP code to go with their new name, but for now say they would be happy just to put a North Hills address on their mail. The post office recognizes their neighborhood as Sepulveda and asks that mail be addressed as such.