Part of Brentwood Allowed to Become Gated Community

A neighborhood in Brentwood has permission from City Hall to erect fences and become a gated community with a 24-hour guard.

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday in favor of allowing residents to cut off public access to five streets just off Sunset Boulevard. The council voted to turn over the streets to the residents of the Brentwood Circle community. Each household will pay up to $300 a month for street maintenance and other costs.

To accommodate the gated community, Sunset Boulevard will be widened at Woodburn Drive to allow traffic to flow into and out of the compound.

Though the council’s approval came with little fanfare, it did not go uncontested. Critics said vehicles entering Brentwood Circle may cause traffic jams on Sunset, and they were concerned about how the gates will look.

“It’s going to be dangerous,” said Raymond Veltman, a Brentwood resident who lives outside the area that will be gated. “Sunset is a micro-highway, and traffic is going to back up way down the street.”

The gated neighborhood is a pocket of about 80 upscale homes just north of Sunset and tucked next to the 405 Freeway. Residents worry that the new Getty Center, which is under construction in the hills directly above the community and is scheduled to open in 1997, will entice visitors into misguided attempts to use their neighborhood as a shortcut.

Although they are next to the Getty property, the streets in Brentwood Circle do not run through to the museum.

The gates will close off the northern end of Fordyce and Downes roads and Gunston, Woodburn and Layton drives. An entrance will be at Woodburn and Sunset. Layton and Gunston drives will serve as exits from the neighborhood.

The Getty Center will help pay for erecting the gates and will cover some other expenses, said Steve Rountree, director of operations for the Getty Trust.

Brentwood Circle is the first established neighborhood in Los Angeles to be enclosed with security fences, said Louie Yamanishi, engineer for the Department of Public Works. The city’s other gated neighborhoods were enclosed when they were built, he said.

The council’s decision on Brentwood Circle comes a year after two state courts rejected a plan to gate Whitley Heights, a neighborhood near the Hollywood Bowl. However, Whitley Heights residents had proposed that the street behind the gates remain public, with maintenance performed by city employees at taxpayer expense.

City Councilwomen Rita Walters and Jackie Goldberg opposed the Brentwood Circle plans, saying locked gates divide a city and create tension between people outside the gates and people behind them.

The day before the council’s final vote, Bill Krisel, an architect and former president of the Brentwood Homeowners Assn., said he would fight the proposal unless the group’s concerns were addressed. Brentwood Circle is one of many neighborhoods that the homeowners association represents.

Association members have approved the plan in concept but have been waiting since 1991 to see blueprints, Krisel said.

The group agreed to the gated community only if it provided a turnaround for cars outside the gates, he said. The association also asked that the gates blend in with the landscaping of the adjacent property.

Councilman Marvin Braude, the political force behind the Brentwood Circle effort, agreed to allow Krisel and the Brentwood Homeowners Assn. to comment on the plans before the city issues permits for construction. Braude has also promised that the plans will be reviewed by the city’s zoning administrator and that the landscaping around the gates will fit the surrounding property.

“I think it’s OK as long as the city says it’s legal,” Krisel said. “But not if the gates cause traffic . . . and create ugliness.”

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Gated Area

The Los Angeles City Council has voted to allow Brentwood residents to cut off public access to five streets just off Sunset Boulevard.