More inclined to build

Forget personal assistants, orchestra seats at Disney Hall and SUVs as big as summer cabins.

Nothing quite makes the point that one has arrived in Los Angeles like a custom-built hillside home with a view.

L.A. County hills are akin to an immense three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle that has been filling in over a century of continuous development. And there are few pieces left.

A dearth of space for new building and strong demand for housing has sent prices of existing homes in hillside areas soaring. But the steep lots that remain are not vacant by accident. They are generally among the most problematic and expensive to build on.

Despite that, and such timeless considerations as fire, mudslides, neighborhood opposition and hefty insurance costs, area realty agents and builders say the wave of new construction taking place in hillside neighborhoods exceeds anything they’ve seen in more than a decade.

“It’s challenging, but we saw an opportunity so we took to the hills,” said Lance Todd, owner of Palmdale-based LT Construction, which is working on a handful of homes in the Hollywood Hills and Mount Washington. “Since real estate shot up, you’re seeing a lot more building in the hills.”

A sluggish residential market and tough new rules tacked onto hillside ordinances in Los Angeles and other cities after the 1994 Northridge earthquake put a damper on the construction in the hills for a time. But those days are over.

No longer are those precarious stilt designs that sprouted around Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s allowed. All new hillside homes now must have “closed” foundations.

And advances in shoring and erosion control have people taking a second look at properties once deemed too steep for building. A cruise through the Hollywood Hills these days will reveal numerous construction sites. Some are virgin hillsides where developers are building on spec -- without a buyer lined up -- and others are lots where smaller homes are making way for grander residences more befitting the neighborhood’s new economic realities.

“Just look at the real estate values on hillsides. The demand is there,” said Ken Deppe, president of Placentia-based Hillside Repair & Drilling Inc. “You also have people who bought 1,200-square-foot homes for $250,000. Those homes are now worth $800,000. They are sitting on all this equity and they’re using it to rebuild.”

But the trend is not limited to Hollywood.

“There’s only so many properties and so much buildable land,” said Shirley Ann Hill, an agent with MacGregor Realty in the Adams Hill neighborhood of Glendale, where a few new homes are going up on steep property. “If it’s buildable, someone will be interested in it.”

Previously passed-over lots are being reconsidered, according to L.A. City Planner Cora Smith. “What we are seeing now is people are finally trying to build on the lots that they didn’t want to build on before. A lot of them are troubled properties.”

Trouble or not, high home prices make it easier for single-family hillside homes to pencil out. And advanced construction methods have made it feasible and safe to build on land sloped up to 45 degrees. That’s a few degrees steeper than engineers and builders were willing to tackle until a few years ago.

One reason is that builders have become more adept at grading hillsides to allow for the construction of flat pads where the house is anchored, as well as building the sometimes massive retaining walls that keep gravity in check. Caissons, cylinders that are drilled into bedrock and fortified with steel rebar and concrete, are now regularly employed in hillside home construction to ensure stability.

Nonetheless, building on hillsides is not a proposition for the weak of knee or the thin of wallet. Amid a sea of uncertainties, the one thing a buyer of hillside property can count on is that signing on the dotted line means the spending has just begun.

Andi Ferretti, an agent with Coldwell Banker Beverly Hills East, is representing the seller of two contiguous lots on about one-quarter acre of sharply angled hillside on Ledgewood Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

“It’ll sell to someone looking to build their dream house,” Ferretti said, “or a developer who will build on spec.”

View property for $400,000 in a neighborhood of million-dollar homes may sound like a bargain to some, but there’s no guarantee that those lots are even capable of supporting a home that’s built to code.

Consider architect Sean Briski, who bought an empty hillside lot in Silver Lake for $55,000 more than a dozen years ago. He was forced to sit on his property for years because building simply did not make economic sense. He finally began construction last month on a house of his own design. Still, despite sharp appreciation in Silver Lake, Briski says his new, four-level 2,500-square-foot home will cost as much to build -- about $800,000 -- as it will be worth.

One problem faced by Briski and others in hillside neighborhoods is getting trucks, cranes and drilling equipment up the narrow, winding streets.

Briski’s new home will be on the downward slope (the street is above the property), which makes construction more difficult and expensive.

“I had budgeted $200,000 for the foundation,” he said, “and when it came in at $300,000, I had to redo my loan package.”

The first step for Los Angeles hillside property owners who want to build, or rebuild, is to order geological and topographical studies. Depending on the steepness of the property and how many holes are drilled, the studies can run from $3,000 to more than $10,000. They must be submitted along with architectural plans to building and safety officials to obtain the necessary construction permits. A structural engineer then must assess those studies and design the home’s foundation.

In a bid to appease homeowners concerned about unrestricted development in their neighborhoods, the Los Angeles City Council passed its first ordinance to regulate hillside building in 1992. Two years later, the Northridge earthquake struck. With thousands of buildings damaged in the temblor, including a few instances in which hillside homes slid off their foundations, officials began to turn their attention to safety.

“It’s very strict now. You used to have all these [city] engineers who spent 90% of their time in the office. Now they’re out inspecting sites,” said Deppe, whose hillside drilling business is enjoying growing demand. “They’ve gotten much tougher about erosion and structural plans.”

Since the earthquake, the Los Angeles hillside ordinance has been amended four times to tighten restrictions on such considerations as the height of houses relative to the street, the way floors and walls are bolted and the depth that caissons must be drilled into bedrock.

If a plan runs afoul of the hillside ordinance -- and they often do -- property owners can apply for a variance with the city Planning Department. That calls for a public hearing where the applicant presents the plans and neighbors can testify for or against the project. The department generally renders its yea or nay within 75 days. A “no” decision sends the owner back to the drawing board.

Briski, who retains a sense of humor about the process, said that while meeting the codes is difficult, the real challenge is adjusting in mid-design to the demands of building and safety officials.

Even if plans have been approved, officials can require changes any time they believe safety is an issue.

“There are so many details along the way and anybody can interpret these details in an unfavorable way,” Briski said. “For me, the primary idea was to build my own house. But I don’t think I’d do it again. It’s too complicated.”

Another major impediment to hillside building is neighborhood opposition. Alarmed by so-called “mansionization” and designs they deem incompatible with their hillside neighborhoods, residents from Malibu to La Crescenta have become more aggressive about opposing new construction.

Glendale architect Edward Hagobian, who specializes in hillside development, is designing three new homes in the Adams Hill area. Most cities, he said, have made building on hillsides a daunting and expensive process to promote safety and to reduce their potential liability in the event of a natural disaster.

But his biggest headaches come from neighbors.

“People think, ‘I have a house, good for me. But I prefer your lot to remain vacant so I can enjoy it.’ That’s the mentality,” Hagobian said. “They are against any development and they go to extremes.”

Yet Hagobian, like others involved in hillside building, isn’t ready to quit. That’s largely because there’s still money to be made in the hills.

High above Hollywood, two new homes with sweeping city views are taking shape on the 2700 block of Creston Drive. Contractor Todd is overseeing the construction of the homes, which are being built on spec.

Work has involved massive retaining walls, piles that had to be driven 40 feet underground to reach solid bedrock and huge amounts of soil removal to create flat pads.

He said the property owner has spent more than $500,000 just to make the downhill lots suitable for building.

“Pre-1994 earthquake, they’d let you build anything, but not now,” Todd said. “They’ve changed it from the ground up, with new rules for foundations, footings and framing. It’s definitely more expensive.”

All told, he estimates that each of the roughly 4,000-square-foot homes will cost about $1.4 million to build -- not including the land. The budget jumped when the contractor was told he needed to drill nine extra caissons -- some down to 40 feet, at $150 per foot -- and there have been other surprises along the way. But with some neighborhood houses selling for nearly $600 a square foot, Todd said he’s confident that the property owner will come out ahead.

“They’ll sell for about $2.4 million,” he said. “That’s still pretty good.”

Darrell Satzman is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer. He can be contacted at satzman @earthlink.net.