Judge Disallows Gates Blocking Public Streets

In a ruling that could end the city of Los Angeles’ right to allow neighborhoods to block outsiders from their streets, a Superior Court judge said Friday that state law was violated when a Hollywood Hills enclave was given permission to install traffic gates.

The city must provide equal access to its public streets under the state Vehicle Code, Judge Robert H. O’Brien said, and was “in error” when the City Council gave Whitley Heights homeowners exclusive use of their streets.

“The city owes a duty to the public not to allow gates on the public streets of Whitley Heights,” O’Brien said. “That denies public access while permitting only owners . . . unrestricted access.”

O’Brien’s ruling came in a lawsuit brought by tenants living outside the stately Hollywood hillside neighborhood of 1920s-era homes.

City officials said the ruling could affect future decisions on applications from 146 other neighborhood groups seeking gates or barricades. Less clear, they said, was the impact on half a dozen neighborhoods that have been given the right to close off or barricade their public streets in the past four years.

Developments that do not include public streets would not be affected, city officials said.

But Deputy City Atty. Leslie Pinchuk said the “decision could have a far-reaching effect on the city’s powers to remove streets from public use,” and the city may appeal.

City actions in cases such as that of Whitley Heights had followed the state Government Code, which states that a local entity can take property out of public use or limit access, Pinchuk said.

But in court, O’Brien noted that the Vehicle Code would prevail on this issue. The code states that a city cannot place gates or similar devices that “deny or restrict the access of certain members of the public, while permitting others unrestricted access.”

Leon Dayan, an attorney for Citizens Against Gated Enclaves, the Whitley Heights tenants’ group that filed the suit, said the ruling shows that “the city shouldn’t be walled off.”

The Whitley Heights Civic Assn., made up of 200 homeowners, had persuaded the City Council in 1985 to remove its streets from public use and in 1991 installed electronically controlled gates. The gates have not been in use, pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

Karen Newman, an attorney and president of the association, called the ruling “incorrect.” The group may appeal, but she was concerned about the cost. “It’s been 10 years and over $400,000,” she said of the effort to erect gates.

Gating has become a volatile issue in Los Angeles in recent years.

Thirty-three neighborhoods, including Baldwin Hills Estates east of La Brea Avenue, Buckingham Estates in Northridge and Bel-Air Skycrest in Bel-Air have applied for gates. Another 113 have applied for partial closures, similar to those already allowed in Athens Heights in South Los Angeles and Lafayette Square near Hancock Park.

Apparently unaffected by Friday’s ruling are areas with gated entrances to private streets. They include Fremont Place, constructed in the early 1900s near Hancock Park, and more than a dozen tract developments built in recent years along Mulholland Drive, in West Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley.

Pinchuk said the ruling is not likely to affect closures made by the police to fight crime, including barricades in parts of South Los Angeles and Pico-Union.

Applicants for gates have cited crime, traffic and parking problems as reasons for their requests. Before his ruling, O’Brien said that while reading declarations supplied by Whitley Heights homeowners, he was struck by “the sense of fear of people who live on those streets.” Most said, “We’re fed up,” he added. “I can understand it. It’s just the question whether (gating is) the right thing to do.”

Critics of gates and barricades, including City Councilwoman Rita Walters, have said the movement threatens to “Balkanize” the city.

Walters, who chairs the Public Works Committee that reviews the applications, said she was delighted by the ruling. “These are public streets, paid for with public money, and I believe the city has an affirmative duty to keep them open.”

City Council President John Ferraro, who represents Whitley Heights and Los Feliz Estates, which last year obtained council approval for gates, said there is no harm in granting gates to some self-contained areas that do not include major thoroughfares. “Obviously, we’ll have to review what the city attorney tells us and make a decision whether to appeal it or not,” Ferraro said.

Some of the 195 homeowners in Los Feliz Estates are wondering if their gating plans will be thwarted, said Terry Bezjian, president of the Los Feliz Estates Homeowners Assn. “We would be extremely disappointed if there was a blanket denial,” she said. “It would also be unfair of the city to allow us to expend all this money and time without having advised us the case was pending. They should have warned us.”

Whitley Heights resident Dave Heckman said he was upset by the ruling. He had supported the gating effort to help preserve the area, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was once home to film stars such as Rudolph Valentino and Jean Harlow. “This whole suit was misguided and politically motivated,” he said. “People who are trying to improve the city are being victimized by political interests.”

But Trelaine Lewis, a private investigator and renter who is one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said she and 46 others went to court because of frustration with city officials. “No one would listen to us,” she said. “All of the input to the city was from people inside the gates.”