Court Upholds Ruling Banning Gated Public Streets

Los Angeles cannot fight crime by allowing homeowner groups to erect electronic gates on public streets to keep out unwanted traffic and pedestrians, the state Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday.

In a 21-page decision upholding an earlier ruling by Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien, a three-judge appeals panel compared the practice of gating public streets in some neighborhoods to medieval feudalism, a system that allowed powerful people to control access to designated areas.

“What the city cannot do is wave a magic wand and declare a public street not to be a public street,” the panel wrote in ruling against the Whitley Heights Civic Assn.

The group--with the approval of the Los Angeles City Council and at a cost of $350,000 of its own money--two years ago erected seven gates across streets and sidewalks in Whitley Heights, a 1920s-era hillside neighborhood just east of the Hollywood Bowl. The group said the gates were needed to stem crime.

Last year, as a result of a lawsuit brought by the grass-roots Citizens Against Gated Enclaves (CAGE), O’Brien ruled the gates illegal and ordered the homeowners not to close them.

The court decision handed down Wednesday upheld O’Brien’s ruling.

It noted that under its agreement with the Whitley Heights homeowners, the city had allowed the group to decide who is allowed in and out of the neighborhood while taxpayer money was used to maintain streets, sewers and storm drains.

The ruling affects scores of groups that have sought applications from the city to gate their neighborhoods. Forty-three of those applications have been approved, but the approvals probably will have to be rescinded, legal experts said.

The ruling does not affect private communities whose streets are not designated for public use.

David Faustian, lawyer for the Whitley Heights group, could not be reached for comment.

Ed Howard, one of the lawyers who represented CAGE, called the ruling a victory for the poor and the less powerful.

“The Court of Appeal got it exactly right,” he said.