L.A. Limits Height of Retaining Walls

Los Angeles officials on Friday banned tall retaining walls that dot the city’s canyon communities from Woodland Hills to Mount Washington, with critics calling the massive bulkheads “the hillside strangler.”

City Council members said the oversized concrete walls that loom over neighboring homes are wrecking the rustic feel of the city’s canyons and hillsides.

Rising property values and improved engineering technology have turned sharply sloping lots once considered unusable into prime construction sites.

But in order to build, some developers have had to create retaining walls as high as six stories.

The new rules prohibit walls taller than 12 feet. And from now on, even scaled-down walls must be hidden by landscaping.

“The developable lots are gone. All that’s left are the old, postage stamp-size lots,” said City Councilman Jack Weiss, who represents hilly sections of the Westside where residents have complained about the construction of mansion-style houses on pads created by massive concrete retaining walls.

The homes are generally built by land speculators intent on recouping the expense of grading and wall-building by selling the dwellings for millions, said Weiss, who offered the “hillside strangler” characterization.

“When you live in one of these neighborhoods and look up, all you see is concrete,” Weiss told council colleagues. “When you live in one of these spec houses, all you see is Catalina Island.”

Silver Lake-area Councilman Tom LaBonge said current hillside construction is far different from early Hollywood Hills development, when subdividers “went with the groove of the hills” instead of simply “taking a bulldozer and carving it out.”

The restrictions were cheered by hillside residents, who say one 42-by-2,000-foot retaining wall on Davies Drive off Benedict Canyon Drive is so big it can be seen for miles.

But some owners of canyon lots voiced fears that the new rules could make it impossible to develop their land.

“Property owners will have to haul more dirt out” if they cannot build necessary slope retaining walls, said Richard Held, who owns property on Summitridge Drive between Benedict and Coldwater canyons. “We’d like to have an ordinance that is fair to all sides.”

Lobbyist Steven Afriat, who has represented hillside property owners, suggested that the wall ordinance smacks of elitism.

“I always have a reaction to these things that people who live in the hillside think the only house that should have been built is their own,” said Afriat in an interview Friday. “It’s another measure designed to protect people who have something special from making sure that other people don’t get to have something special.”

Hillside residents have long complained about the massive retaining walls. But the concerns have heightened in recent years as more odd lots have been built upon.

“These are monstrosities. They’re ruining our neighborhoods,” said Steve Twining, a Bel-Air resident who heads the Bel-Air Beverly Crest Neighborhood Council and represents 8,000 canyon-area families.

Pam Cooke, the leader of a Beverly Glen residents group, said those traveling through her canyon encounter “a scar” when they pass a huge retaining wall near Angelo Drive.

“We must get these monsters under control,” she told council members.

Real estate agent Barbara Nichols, who is president of the Benedict Canyon Homeowners Assn., assured council members that the new rules would not prevent the building of “people’s dream homes.” Rather, ordinance supporters hope smaller homes will be built on the lots.

Under the new ordinance -- approved on a 10-0 council vote and scheduled for a final ratification Friday -- developers may build two 10-foot-high retaining walls, provided they are stair-stepped and at least three feet apart.

At the urging of Eastside Councilman Ed Reyes, the ordinance will apply to hillside apartment and condominium units as well as single-family homes.

The ordinance includes a provision that allows a property owner to apply for a waiver to build a taller barrier if the slope demands it.

But winning an exemption could be time-consuming, costly and far from a sure bet for landowners hoping to build on steep lots, predicted Larry Gray, a civil engineer and land planner from Van Nuys.

Hillside homes may be only 36 feet tall under current city codes. On a sloping lot, the distance from ground to the highest point on the roof is measured on the down-slope side, he said.

“The ordinance will make a lot of the lots very difficult to build on,” Gray said. “It will cause problems for a number of people. The problem with an ordinance like this is you correct one problem and cause a number of other problems.”