Builder’s Bad Luck Gives Homeowners Their Dream : Housing: Doctor buys hilly property from strapped developer, promising to build one house instead of the 15 that had been planned.

Like many San Fernando Valley residents, they fought for years to reduce the size of a proposed housing development overlooking their neighborhood.

But it took the recession and a wealthy Pasadena doctor to make residents’ dreams for the 42.5-acre parcel in the hills above Sunland-Tujunga come true.

The doctor, who was not identified, bought the land last week for $525,000 from a financially strapped developer and promised to build one estate-size house instead of the 15 smaller ones approved last year by the city of Los Angeles.

“That’s the best news we could ever hope to hear,” said J. Sylvia Gross, chairwoman of the Sunland-Tujunga Residents Assn., which fought the McGroarty Oaks Estates development. “We don’t want our community to look like Glendale” with intensive development in the hills, she said.

But developer Chris Rigdon, who spent eight years getting approval for the project before selling the land at a $1.2-million loss, said neighbors will eventually pay a price for opposing high-density development.

“Let them gloat,” he said. “Let them have their day. The NIMBYs argue that the reason the price of houses is so high is the greedy developers.” NIMBY refers to the sentiment of “Not in my back yard.”

“But that’s not the case. What drives up the price is the very thing that happened to me.”

Rigdon said he initially approached the city in 1983 for permission to build 26 houses on the hilly property in the 8300 block of McGroarty Street. Although the project required zone changes, it was progressing smoothly through the approval process until neighbors expressed strong concerns about traffic and other effects, Los Angeles city planner Simon Pastucha said.

“Opposition was very, very strong,” Pastucha said.

After a series of contentious hearings, Rigdon was ordered to prepare a full environmental report on the project, which took two years. Last year, the City Council ended up giving Rigdon permission to build 15 houses, 11 fewer than he originally planned. In exchange, the developer agreed to donate 36.1 acres of the land to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Rigdon had until 1998 to begin construction, but he ran out of money.

The Piatelli Co. of Beverly Hills, which auctioned off the property last week, advertised the land as ideal either for a developer who wanted to complete the project or as a “dream property . . . perfect for the busy entertainment executive/artist, or corporate leader who seeks privacy, and the room to build everything he/she has ever wished to build, including large swimming pools, multiple tennis courts, riding trails and corrals, guest houses, maids’ quarters, screening rooms, recording studios. . . .”

Mario Piatelli, president of the auction house, said a rich Pasadena doctor “who likes his privacy” plans to build his dream house there. The doctor will not donate land to the conservancy, but agency spokesman John Diaz said that construction of a single house will accomplish the conservancy’s goals anyway by forestalling more intensive development.

Nonetheless, Gross said, residents will keep a close eye on the property to make sure the doctor does not change his mind and decide to develop the site more densely.

“I’ve lived too long--79 years--to take anything for granted,” especially where development is concerned, she said.