Neighborhood Moving Up in the World

Forget packing. Abe Knobel’s brood and nine other Los Angeles families recently made the move to Beverly Hills without having to take a step beyond their front doors.

Knobel is part of a tight-knit group of Angelenos who got the Beverly Hills city limits moved to include their slice of Hillgreen Drive, a quiet tree-lined street on a cul-de-sac dwarfed by nearby Century City high-rises.

It took more than a decade to change the Beverly Hills-Los Angeles border, a line of demarcation often seen as separating the haves from the have-nots. The pull is so strong that people on the Los Angeles side often describe their neighborhood as “Beverly Hills adjacent.”

But before you accuse Knobel and his neighbors of trying to quickly inflate the value of their homes, hear him out:

“It was never about money,” he said. “Beverly Hills could provide the fire and life safety services that Los Angeles couldn’t.”

Hillgreen Drive was turned into a cul-de-sac to cut down on traffic when Century City was built in the 1960s. The cul-de-sac isolated the 10 Los Angeles homes at the end of the street, making them accessible to fire and police vehicles only if they cut through the streets of Beverly Hills.

Over the years, residents complained that during emergencies, precious moments were often lost in just finding their tiny stretch of Los Angeles.

“Sometimes the difference of a minute is a difference between life and death,” said Knobel, who is married and the father of three children.

The spark that united the community to push for the annexation was ignited in 1989 when the husband of Marie-France Salaun collapsed in a diabetic coma and Los Angeles paramedics were called to her house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

“They couldn’t find us,” Salaun said. “I could hear them passing back and forth, but they didn’t stop. Finally, I sent the children out to the street to flag them down.”

Salaun’s husband was rushed to the hospital, but he died shortly afterward, she said.

Residents complained of other incidents in which police, who were uncertain about the location, showed up at homes long after robbers had gone. They said they also felt the constant reminders of second-class status from being on the “L.A. side of the tracks,” such as the need for separate garbage trucks and street sweepers dispatched to service the Los Angeles homes.

Joan Marcy, who lives on the Beverly Hills end of Hillgreen, acknowledged that her side looked down on the Los Angeles residents. “The Beverly Hills side always seemed to have a chip on its shoulder.” Another resident of the Beverly Hills side said: “Los Angeles begins where the trees are not trimmed, and where the street is not freshly paved.”

Critics of the annexation, such as Beverly Hills resident Betty Harris, dismissed it as an attempt by the Los Angeles homeowners to gain Beverly Hills status--such as enhanced property values and excellent schools. She compared the homeowners to people who rent post office boxes in the city for the bragging rights of a prestigious mailing address.

“The problem is the city has no set policy when it comes to annexations,” she said. “There are many areas that are anxious to come in here.”

March Schwartz, the founder and publisher of the Beverly Hills Courier, said the residents were aware of the jurisdictional problem when they bought their homes. The problem was “not inflicted on them by any action of the city of Beverly Hills, so why is Beverly Hills obligated to ameliorate it?”

The Hillgreen annexation did not come cheap.

Under the agreement with Beverly Hills officials, the 10 property owners will pay $32,500 each for expenses associated with the change, such as possible litigation, sewer and utility hookups, and the cost of acquiring nearby Heath Avenue, an alleyway that runs behind dozens of Beverly Hills homes and was under Los Angeles jurisdiction.

Support for the annexation was based largely on the inclusion of Heath Avenue, which had the backing of Beverly Hills residents.

City officials said the annexation doesn’t automatically guarantee residents the right to attend Beverly Hills schools; that is a matter that will have to be taken up separately with the school district.

The Hillgreen annexation was the 14th addition to the city since 1915, a year after Beverly Hills was incorporated. The last annexation occurred in 1977-78, when portions of 12 parcels split on the boundary lines in the same section of the city were added. There are still 80 to 90 properties that are partly in Los Angeles and partly in Beverly Hills.

Earlier this month, residents from both sides of the border cheered when the Beverly Hills City Council gave its final approval on the Hillgreen annexation, before the measure was sent to be officially recorded. Approval has already been granted by Los Angeles and the county Local Agency Formation Commission, the latter of which had the final say.

“Finally,” Joan Marcy said, “we have a unified neighborhood.”

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Moving Up

Residents of 10 homes on Hillgreen Drive, a Los Angeles cul-de-sac next to Century City, have persuaded Beverly Hills to annex their street.