Exemptions From Brush Inspection Fee Proposed

Six months after homeowner protests forced delays in a brush inspection fee program, Los Angeles fire officials have proposed exempting 70,000 properties.

The change would drop mandatory inspections for flatland property adjacent to mountain fire hazard zones, and for some land that is heavily landscaped. Fire officials insisted that the new plan would not lead to greater fire danger.

Many residents who received unexpected brush clearance notices, sent out for the first time last spring, argued that their property should not have been subject to the fee.

Bowing to pressure, the Los Angeles City Council ordered the Fire Department in June to reevaluate the boundaries of its Mountain Fire District and buffer zones.

“We have excluded those homes that are not facing as serious a brush fire threat, including those in the flatlands,” said Battalion Chief Daryl Arbuthnott on Wednesday. “We no longer have the buffer zones included.”

The report said that to cover expenses of the program, fees for the 100,000 parcels still requiring inspections would have to be increased from $13 to $17. But the fee issue is so explosive that the report took no position on whether any fee should be imposed, leaving that decision to the council. “We are neutral,” Arbuthnott said.

Neutrality was the position backed by the Fire Commission, but the panel’s chief, David Fleming, thinks the city should pay for brush clearance out of its general fund.

“That fee issue is so politically charged that I don’t think we should ask for a fee,” he said.

Any attempt to reinstate a brush fee, without putting it to the vote of property owners, would probably be challenged in court, said Kris Vosburgh of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. “This is pretty outrageous,” he said.

Homeowner leaders who fought the fee earlier this year said they are prepared to do battle again.

Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, said the Fire Department has been inspecting property for years using normal tax funds, without the need for special fees. “That’s what they are paid to do to begin with,” he said. “There is no reason to make an extra charge. It’s unfair.”

The fee was meant to cover the city’s cost of making sure property owners in fire hazard areas cleared brush from within 200 feet of buildings, as required by city law.

The council’s Public Safety Committee will consider the new plan Monday. Clearance notices won’t go out until April, but Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who heads the committee, supported cutbacks in mandatory inspections.

“In my district, the buffer zone came down to include part of Ventura Boulevard, including some high-rise buildings,” she said. “I think it is appropriate to delete some properties.”

City officials said the scaled-back program would not compromise safety. Fire inspectors, using criteria set by the state, drove streets in the buffer areas and looked at historical patterns of brush fires before deciding to exclude some properties from the program. Satellite photos and models to show where brushy fuel is thickest and driest were also used.

The result was elimination of the old fire district and creation of a 158-square-mile area called a Very High Fire Hazard Zone that includes parts of the Santa Monica Mountains, Mount Washington, El Sereno, Baldwin Hills and Elysian Park.

The city created the Mountain Fire District after the 1961 Bel-Air fire. The buffer zones were set in 1971 based on concerns about where the wind might drive blazes. The city paid for inspection sweeps of the targeted areas for several years.

The Fire Department touched off a furor last spring when it sent notices to 170,000 property owners telling them that the city had decided to impose an inspection fee.

Council members said the notices were abrasive and failed to make it clear that fees could be avoided by self-inspections. The council decided in June that the program had been so mishandled that it should be dropped and started again in 2000.