Residents Skeptical of Hillside Development

Canyon dwellers packed a neighborhood meeting at Sherman Oaks Elementary School to get a peek at preliminary plans for a luxury home development proposed for Deervale Canyon.

Judging from the red “Stop This Project” stickers most of the 200 attendees wore at the Thursday night meeting and their pointed questions about mudslides and habitat destruction, few were impressed.

City Councilman Mike Feuer, who called the informational meeting, quickly made clear his views on the proposed 24-home gated community on 80 forested acres of the Santa Monica Mountains.

“I am not predisposed to favor hillside developments,” Feuer said to audience applause. “Hillside developments mean building on a resource that we cannot renew.”

At this time, he said, “this is a project that I cannot support, but, having said that, we are at the beginning of a process.”

The proposal from Shawbeth Inc. of Glendale is far more restrained than other plans from 1977 and 1981 for the plum site, which called for, respectively, 117 homes on 121 acres and 73 homes on 100 acres, he added.

The proposal, which involves extensive grading and the reconstruction of an existing ridge, will not even begin the exhaustive environmental review process for about three months, said Hadar Plafkin, a city planner.

“We are at the beginning of a very, very long road,” he said. “The actual planning process involves almost 20 steps, and we’re at [step] 1A.”

As outlined by project manager Kenneth Kai Chang and engineer Larry G. Gray, the final project will be minimally visible from surrounding properties, will feature 60% landscaped open space and will increase firetruck access to other canyon homes. For proof of the quality of the proposed project, Chang invited audience members to tour Mulholland Estates in Beverly Hills, one of his developments and also where he lives.

But the residents at the meeting weren’t buying the pitch. When told that some animal displacement was inevitable, Sherman Oaks resident Larry Shapiro quipped, “Is there going to be a petting zoo up there?”

Added resident Linda G. Bear: “I think, environmentally, this is probably the stupidest idea I’ve heard in a long time.”

Others recalled the area’s propensity toward landslides in rains and worried that graded land would be more prone to destructive slides, which Gray countered.

“We feel this will be significantly safer than the hillside is now,” Gray said.