Hillside Building Controls Win Approval : Council Completes Action on Proposal; Bradley Supports It

The City Council gave final approval Wednesday to an ordinance that would restrict construction on Los Angeles’ hillsides and canyons and protect what remains of their natural contours from wholesale residential development.

Without debate, the council voted 12 to 0 in favor of the measure, which Mayor Tom Bradley has said he would sign and which he praised after its final approval.

Under the ordinance, 100 homes can still be built on 100 acres of land if the grade is 15% or less. But if a slope exceeds that, additional acreage would be required with the amount increasing proportionately as the grade steepens.

For instance, with each 1% increase in slope, the number of homes allowed per 100 acres would would diminish by about three. On 100 acres of land with a 33% slope, the formula would permit construction of only 49 homes. On grades of 49% or greater, the limit would be five homes per each 100 acres.

The new law will not affect all hillsides in the city, but only those now zoned for one house per acre. This zoning applies to 16 areas of the city, mostly in the Santa Monica Mountains, the northwestern fringes of the San Fernando Valley and portions of the Hollywood Hills, Mt. Washington and Highland Park. It is based roughly on the principle of “the steeper the slope, the lower the density,” which has been a matter under consideration by council members since the mid-1970s.

The city’s chief zoning administrator, Frank Eberhard, had suggested earlier that if the ordinance had been in effect previously a “whole plethora” of housing tracts constructed in the Santa Monica Mountains in recent years would have resulted in fewer residences per acre and preserved more open space there.

Bradley said upon learning of the council action Wednesday that the ordinance “will protect some of our most scenic hillsides from overdevelopment.”