Guarded Gates of Hidden Hills Shaken on Their Hinges by Plan for Low-Income Housing

Hidden Hills is a community that tries to live by its name. It has just two entrances, both gated and guarded. Million-dollar homes sit behind spacious front yards, oak trees and white ranch-style fences.

It is a town without apartments, without condominiums and without, well, poor people.

But now the city is grappling with a state mandate that it provide low-cost housing. A proposal before the City Council to annex land outside the gates and build 46 units of multifamily housing for senior citizens has resulted in a controversy that has shaken the serene 2,000-member community west of Woodland Hills.

Two stormy public meetings have pitted opponents of the plan against the city’s attorney, who is backing it. In the second meeting last week, an uncertain City Council voted unanimously to conduct an informal advisory poll of the residents.

“This is a real sensitive issue for some of us in this community,” said resident Susan Porcaro. “Yes, there is a need for low-income housing. No, we don’t want it on our street. . . . We worked our tails off to have this house.”

Hidden Hills was incorporated in 1961 to retain the area’s rural, equestrian quality and to fight off a planned extension of Burbank Boulevard through the town. Some residents say opposition to the affordable housing plan stems from residents’ desire to keep Hidden Hills an island in a sea of urban growth.

“When there’s a suggestion that the city wishes to annex an area that has higher density, I think there’s a reaction,” said Paul Gilbert, president of the town’s community association, which owns and maintains the city’s roads and its two gates.

“Low density is the desire, and there’s no other innuendo or implication to flow from that,” added Gilbert, who said he has yet to make up his mind on the issue.

But earlier this summer, an anonymous letter was circulated in town. It said in part: “Keep in mind, the residents of the low-income housing project would: 1. Have a right to vote in our city elections, 2. Have a right to be members of our city commissions . . . 3. Have a right to use all city-owned facilities, such as the swimming pool, tennis courts, administration building, etc., 4. And, have their best interests conflict with our best interests. Is this what we really want for our community???”

City Atty. Wayne K. Lemieux says he finds the controversy hard to understand. The project would house senior citizens outside the town’s gates and would be shielded from the existing city by a hill. Its residents would use different access roads, he said. Lemieux called the opposition “unreasonable.”

“When people are being unreasonable, I look for ulterior motives,” Lemieux said. “I don’t know if there are any here.”

Hidden Hills is considering the senior citizen housing project because of a complex set of circumstances that some residents have found difficult to understand and some city officials have found difficult to explain.

In 1984, the city formed a redevelopment agency to finance a needed flood-control project without new taxes. Hidden Hills was promptly sued by Los Angeles County and a private attorney, Murray Kane. Both contended that the city was not blighted and thus should not reap the tax benefits of redevelopment at the expense of county taxpayers.

Last year, the suit with the county was settled, with county officials agreeing to pay $5.1 million for the drainage project. But Kane contested the settlement; under state redevelopment law, a portion of redevelopment money must be spent on affordable housing. In May of this year, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge R. William Schoettler Jr. agreed to dismiss the suit if Hidden Hills would agree to an affordable housing plan. The City Council consented.

Last year, the wealthy desert city of Indian Wells was involved in a similar controversy after it launched a redevelopment agency to attract upscale resort businesses. Confronted with the affordable housing regulations, the city and a resort developer lobbied Sacramento for an exemption that passed the Legislature but was vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian.

Aside from Hidden Hills’ settlement in the redevelopment lawsuit, Lemieux points to state law that requires all cities to provide for affordable housing in their planning and zoning regulations.

Hidden Hills argued last year to the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a regional planning agency responsible for enforcing the housing law, that the city has no more room for affordable housing and that building it would not be feasible. SCAG rejected the argument.

“What we’re doing is identifying what the need is, not how feasible it is,” said Jim Minuto, manager of SCAG’s housing program. “The city, in their housing element, has to address that need.”

The senior citizens project would be built on a small portion of 25 acres that would be annexed to the city from Los Angeles County. A private developer would build nine luxury homes on 20 acres and commercial buildings and the project for senior citizens on the remainder. The land is along Lasher Road between the city’s southern boundary and the Ventura Freeway.

Lemieux sees the project as a way to settle the Kane matter and comply with state law. Not doing anything, he maintains, could subject Hidden Hills to a lawsuit in which the city could be forced to build housing without any control over its cost and location.

But at the two public meetings Sept. 7 and Monday, residents expressed considerable desire to fight the state’s affordable-housing requirements.

“Do you want to take a chance that you’re going to get caught?” Lemieux said at the Sept. 7 hearing. He was interrupted by an approving roar.

“We don’t want low-cost housing,” resident Philip Gardner said. “We don’t want Willie Brown and Jerry Brown controlling our interests.”

“People don’t want low-income housing right next door,” Porcaro said. “We are not any different from anybody else in any other area who owns a house.”

Danny Howard, the Tarzana developer who wants to build the project, disagreed.

“It would be a mistake for the community to try to stick their head in the sand and say they don’t have to comply with laws,” Howard said. “They have an opportunity now to comply with the law in a manner that would have a very minimal effect on the community.”

The council, however, remains unsure that the answer is so simple. Council members agreed to the poll after seeming somewhat taken aback by the volume of the opposition that surfaced at the public meetings.

“It is bewildering,” Councilwoman Kathleen D. Bartizal said, adding that she is unsure whether the opponents are representative of the town’s feelings.

The council did not specify when the poll would take place or what question would be asked.

“That’s going to be one hellacious question,” Lemieux said. If the choice is between the council obeying and defying state law, “I’m not going to give them that choice,” he said.

Mayor Chris K. Van Peski, however, said: “The City Council will draft the poll rather than the city attorney.”

Van Peski said he still is unsure of the city’s legal obligations. He contended that Hidden Hills already has low-income retired residents who bought their homes many years ago. Estimating how many would be “strictly conjecture,” he said. The town’s 1989 estimated median household income is $75,000, according to the U.S. Census.

The poll has prompted Councilwoman Colleen Hartman to talk of resigning after 19 years. Although Hartman voted to conduct the poll, she said she will resign if the poll directs the council to defy state law.

“If they’re wrong, I don’t need to join them,” she said.