‘Hedge police’will cool their heels for now
CITY HALL — It prompted a reference to Nazi Germany, and the illegal storage of ammunition and plutonium. It’s a dispute over local hedges — how tall they should be and how to best regulate them.
Dozens of well-heeled residents descended on City Hall Tuesday evening to address a 1948 law that limits front hedges to three and a half feet, and hedges in side and back yards to eight feet. More than 100 violators recently were told they had 30 days to cut back their bushes or be fined as much as $25,000 a day, up to $500,000.
“I’m almost embarrassed that we’re spending this time on such a trivial matter,” said Bruce Leddy, who lives on 10th Street north of Montana Avenue. “A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from the city of Santa Monica saying that I was in violation of a code and I would have to pay $25,000 a day, up to a half million dollars.
“You might expect that I was storing plutonium in my front yard, or perhaps storing live ammunitions somewhere, or something of great public safety danger. My hedges are actually too tall — and I’m showing my face in public.”
Leddy was the first of 45 people to speak on the issue before members of the City Council decided to extend a recent moratorium on enforcing the law until it can be studied in more detail, and the enforcement process improved.
City Attorney Marsha Moutrie said although the letter sent to residents says the maximum fine is $25,000 a day, the actua top fine for hedge and fence violations is $2,500. The warning issued to citizens is a generic form sent to code violators, she added.
Regardless of the fee, residents clearly had different opinions on the law. At issue is what’s public versus what’s private. Some claim high hedges are needed for safety and privacy, and others say they create walled fortresses that block out light and air.
“When our children were small, we had a book at home called ‘What If Everybody Did,’” said Giles Smith, who supported the law. “I think that’s a perfect metaphor for the situation we’re talking about here, especially the issue of front yard hedges. When a few people put up very tall hedges around their front yards, they profess to see no penalty to that and no damage to the city. But what if everybody did that? Imagine, every street would look like essentially a tunnel between two high walls, with little doors interspersed periodically between them.”
Seventeen-year local resident Manju Devgan agreed. Devgan said a neighbor’s hedge drowns out her sunshine.
“It’s very pathetic, and we’ve complained, and they’ve been cited, and nothing has been done and we’ve had a lovely run around — which I have not enjoyed at all,” said Devgan, who lives at 522 Palisades Beach Rd., but said she’s never seen a beach sunset from her home. “We use electricity 24 hours a day. It’s like living in a cave.”
Devgan’s sentiments were drowned out by arguments against the hedge law. The speakers came from neighborhoods north of Montana Avenue, particularly the expensive homes on Adelaide Drive that overlook the Pacific Ocean. They also came from the pedestrian-only streets off of Ocean Avenue, where residents said they need a buffer from transients and criminals.
“There is no half-way reasonable process to appeal a compliance order. I tried. It cost too much in currency, it cost too much in blood,” said Jerry Bass, who’s spent thousands of dollars fighting to keep a six-foot-tall fence and 14-foot-tall hedge in front of his house at 15 Seaview Terrace.
“The law is antiquated,” he said. “It is ignorant of city life. It must be changed.”
One man said City Hall’s current solution to the perceived hedge problem was like hitting a fly with a sledgehammer. Another said he needed the hedges to separate him from people that use the sidewalk in front of his Adelaide Drive home like a Starbuck’s or a gym — regularly hanging out, leaving trash and changing their clothes to exercise on the adjacent staircases leading down into the canyon.
Mayor Richard Bloom four times had to admonish the audience to keep quiet after it broke out in applause or laughter while members of the public spoke.
After saying he felt more comfortable speaking openly because two police officers were in the building, City Councilman Kevin McKeown asked one local resident, attorney Irwin Waldman, why he had “turned in” 600 neighbors by mailing in pictures of their too-tall hedges.
Waldman replied he did so to show the council there were numerous violations, adding nobody seemed to mind the hedges until City Hall stepped in.
“This is not Nazi Germany, where we turn in our neighbors. I didn’t turn in anybody — wrong choice of words, sir.”
Among those speaking was Bobby Shriver, the brother-in-law of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Adelaide Drive resident and Beverly Hills lawyer. Shriver’s front hedge was cited for being six inches above the limit, and his side and rear hedges tower much higher. Shriver pointed to the strong outpouring of community members against the law, adding there would have been more if not for the NBA finals airing on TV that night. Some speakers listened to the basketball game over the radio.
Local attorney Tom Larmore, who was at the podium when Kobe Bryant sunk a last-second, three-point basket that catapulted the Lakers into overtime, urged the council to extend a recently passed moratorium on the hedge law.
“One of the things that’s noticeable to me is how relatively few people have high hedges, and it isn’t because they know it’s illegal — it’s because they don’t want them,” said Larmore, who doesn’t have a front hedge, though he lives on a busy stretch of Seventh Street north of Montana Avenue.
“So, to me, what’s happened here is we have these three new code compliance officers that are out there looking for something to do, and they’ve discovered these hedges,” Larmore added.
Though the hedge law has been around since 1948, it had been enforced only sporadically until recently. City Hall has been adding investigators, who have targeted business signs, fences and hedges, special permits for merchants, and general code violations, officials said.
A recent report from city staffers said there have been 253 hedge and fence law cases initiated this year and 110 violations determined. Of those, 61 violators complied, another 143 were still being investigated and 49 were still not complying. Hearings are ongoing in another 10 cases.
After four hours of discussion, the City Council agreed unanimously to extend a moratorium that bans enforcement of the law, except in extreme cases where safety is an issue, like at intersections.
All of the council members agreed front yard hedges should be limited and asked staff to investigate how it could allow higher hedges in the side and rear yards where neighbors weren’t adversely affected. A revised hedge law is expected to return to the council late this fall.
City Councilman Herb Katz, who brought the matter to the council with City Councilman Bob Holbrook, said he’d like to go further. The 56-year-old law was made when Santa Monica was lined with one-story beach bungalows and had far less traffic. Today things are different, Katz said.
“It isn’t over,” Katz said Wednesday. “I don’t understand why we’re making it so difficult on people unless they’ve got a valid complaint. The philosophy is, ‘If it ain’t broke, let’s fix it.’ I just think we go overboard, I really mean it. We spend all our time passing laws and making people go down to City Hall and get variances.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 10, 2004. Read the original PDF.