Local News in Brief : Building Review Board to Be Axed

Hoping to streamline an often acrimonious process, Beverly Hills has decided to eliminate its Hillside Review Board and look for other ways to deal with neighborhood disputes about overbuilding in the high-priced residential area north of Sunset Boulevard.

Members of the city’s Planning Commission believe strongly that regulations are needed to control overdevelopment, but the current procedure “just didn’t work,” commission Chairwoman Meralee Goldman told the City Council.

The Hillside Review Board, made up of one planning commissioner and two city staff members, was asked to review proposals for new houses or major additions, listen to testimony from supporters and opponents, then decide whether to refer the proposal to the Planning Commission for public hearings.

The commission hearings, in turn, sometimes went past 2 a.m. because of the large numbers of neighbors waiting to be heard. Some cases took as long as eight hours as neighbors complained that their views would be blocked or that the architectural style of their neighborhood would be affected.