Restrictions Sought on Large Hillside Houses

Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky moved Friday to expand temporary building restrictions throughout the hillsides of Sherman Oaks to prevent the construction of big houses on small, sloping parcels of land.

Yaroslavsky’s motion would ban houses taller than 30 feet, require front and back yards to be at least five feet deep and prevent houses from covering more than half of their lots.

In May, the City Council approved the same limits for a swath of hillside land between Beverly Glen Boulevard and Camino de la Cumbre. The expanded area would include all hillside property bounded by the San Diego Freeway, Mulholland Drive, Valley Vista Boulevard and Dixie Canyon Road.

Friday’s proposed measure, which must win City Council approval, was prompted by neighborhood concern over a developer’s plan to build up to 20 houses along Hopevale Drive, a narrow hillside street.

“Developers are building these gigantic homes on small slivers of land,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. “The houses are totally out of proportion for the neighborhood. If 20 of them go up on one street it could really create havoc.”

Ralph Gould, a spokesman for CTC Management of West Los Angeles, said the development firm has not finished plans for the homes it wants to build on Hopevale and that only preliminary survey work has been done. The houses will not be disproportionately large for the parcels of land, which average about 5,000 square feet, he said.

“We are not looking to build homes of the scale that they have been building in Beverly Hills, the kind that people are complaining about,” Gould said. He added that residents will benefit from construction because it would stabilize slopes against erosion.

Nevertheless, Yaroslavsky said Friday he intends to move the expansion of the restrictions through the approval process within 30 to 60 days, so that a strict law will be in place before the developer begins construction.

Subdivided in 1920s

The undeveloped Hopevale plots were legally subdivided in the 1920s and cannot be changed, Yaroslavsky said. If the plots were subdivided today, more stringent hillside construction standards would require them to be about three times as large.

“Unfortunately we can’t change the tract maps,” Yaroslavsky said. “But we can control the building.”

If approved, the controls will be in effect for one year while planners and community leaders draft permanent zoning restrictions to regulate hillside building.

Residents along Oakfield Drive, known as “Stilt Street” for its eye-catching row of historic houses built on stilts, sought restrictions on the construction of large homes more than a year ago.