Council OKs Strict Rules on Hillside Construction : Housing: The measure is aimed at limiting large residences on small lots in mountainous areas including some in the Valley.

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday tentatively approved tough new rules on housing construction in hillside areas, following an unusually bitter public spat between two council members who attacked each other’s credibility.

Councilmen Nate Holden and Michael Woo clashed over the disclosure Saturday that Woo, one of the measure’s most vocal champions, is now remodeling his own home in Silver Lake--but without including the costly, public-safety provisions the hillside ordinance will require of others.

The hillside plan is aimed at halting the proliferation of mansions on small hillside lots. It also seeks to make the city’s hilly areas safer by requiring in-house firefighting sprinklers, and to improve access for emergency vehicles by reducing the number of cars parked on narrow, winding roads.

In addition to the Santa Monica Mountains and Hollywood Hills, the measure would affect mountainous Sunland-Tujunga and Porter Ranch in the San Fernando Valley and Silver Lake and Echo Park near downtown.

Tuesday’s council vote was 11 to 2 in favor of the plan, with Holden and Councilman Mike Hernandez the sole opponents. It is expected to gain final approval in a vote scheduled for next week.

Alan Kishbaugh, president of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., said later that the proposal “is not a perfect document and that two or three years from now we will probably seek to change it, fine-tune it” by toughening its provisions.

The federation, representing numerous homeowner groups in the Santa Monica Mountains, has been a key backer of the plan.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, a supporter, Tuesday urged quick adoption of the long-awaited ordinance, saying “literally tens of thousands” of homeowners are eager to stop hillside overbuilding, which he called “an obscene development” that degrades the city’s natural beauty.

Meanwhile, foes have said the plan will work an unfair hardship on many owners of small hillside lots, including pensioners who counted on developing their properties for retirement income.

“This is the annuity for many people,” Tony Eldridge, an officer in the Hillside Property Owners Assn., has argued. “They keep saying we’re big developers. But our membership is mostly people who own one vacant lot or a small house.”

Holden predicted property owners will sue the city to overturn the measure.

Key rules place a 36-foot height limit on most hillside houses and 45-foot limit on houses built on steeper lots. Others prohibit a house from covering more than 40% of most lots or 45% of substandard lots of 5,000 square feet or less--blocking construction of mansions on small lots.

Opponents of the plan, including architects, have said these provisions may result in boxier, less attractive houses.

The regulations also require all new hillside houses, and those undergoing substantial remodeling, to be equipped with automatic sprinkler systems to fight fires.

Sprinklers would be required in remodeled houses that either grew more than 50% in size or increased 50% or more in value and are more than two miles from a fire station.

To get parked cars off narrow hillside streets, the proposal requires builders to provide extra off-street parking spaces for new houses and remodeling jobs that result in structures over 2,400 square feet. For each 1,000-square-foot increment over 2,400 square feet, one extra off-street parking space is required.

Woo previously said the lack of off-street parking made it difficult for emergency vehicles to navigate many serpentine hillside streets. He has repeatedly cited the story of an elderly Laurel Canyon woman who died of a heart attack before paramedics could reach her home.

Kishbaugh of the hillside homeowner group said later that the measure should be tightened so that extra parking requirements kick in at 1,500 square feet.

Kishbaugh also said the measure’s little-discussed sewer hookup provision should have been strengthened. Under the measure passed Tuesday, new hillside homes will need to hook up to the city’s sewer system if built within 200 feet of an existing sewer line. At present, hillside homes often use septic tanks.

Because of the threat of septic tank contamination of ground water in hillside areas, the measure should require sewage hookups for any new construction within 1,000 feet of a sewer line, Kishbaugh said.