City Planners Propose Controls to Preserve Mulholland Drive View

After 16 years of study, Los Angeles city planners have unveiled controversial new development controls intended to preserve the view from the city’s most famous scenic roadway--22-mile-long Mulholland Drive.

Planners are calling for permanent limits on new construction for half a mile on either side of the twisting, two-lane mountain roadway between the Hollywood Freeway in the Studio City-Hollywood area and Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Woodland Hills.

The ordinance would control such things as grading and the height, color and landscaping of new homes. It would establish a new development review board that would have authority to rule on building requests. Property owners who violated the new law would be subject to fines.

The proposed Mulholland Scenic Parkway plan has drawn praise from conservationists and homeowners leaders who contend that its protections are 15 years overdue.

But it is being criticized by mountaintop landowners who say that it would rob them of their property rights by making thousands of parcels virtually undevelopable.

‘It’s Horrible’

“It’s going to make my $7-million piece of property worthless,” Tarzana resident Sheldon R. Caplow said Tuesday. He said he has owned a 17-acre Mulholland Drive parcel for 30 years. “It’s horrible.”

Realtor George Caloyannidis, who lives in the Hollywood Hills, has started a group called “Hands Off Mulholland” to defeat the ordinance. He said the proposed controls would hurt homeowners who want to remodel or re-landscape their mountain residences.

“They have scared people into thinking that if they don’t adopt the parkway, Mulholland will be turned into a four-lane highway and will be lined by high-density development,” Caloyannidis said Tuesday.

Supporters of the proposed ordinance say its protections are coming too late to prevent the loss of some of Mulholland’s vistas of the Valley, the ocean and downtown Los Angeles.

“Developers have benefited from the stalling of the ordinance for 16 years,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. “There are projects up there that never should have been allowed to exist. The (views) that are left should be protected.”

A city planner who helped draft the new ordinance, Daniel Scott, said the scenic corridor plan is being proposed in time to protect many of the vistas that attract visitors both night and day.

‘It’s Entirely Unique’

“They are definitely worth saving,” Scott said Tuesday. “People come from all over the world to experience this scenic drive. It’s entirely unique to the city of Los Angeles.”

He said planning commissioners and the City Council will conduct public hearings as the ordinance is considered for adoption. The process will begin with four-hour discussion workshops today, Oct. 5 and Oct. 15. Today’s session will begin at 5 p.m. in the Federal Building Cafeteria, 11000 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood.

Scott said the proposed ordinance has taken 16 years to complete because varied terrain along the roadway has made the regulations complicated. The ordinance contains separate restrictions for two zones--an inner corridor extending 500 feet from either side of the roadway and an outer corridor extending half a mile out.