The final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Upper Stone Canyon Reservoir Water Quality Improvement Project was released.

You may access the draft EIR and final EIR here:

http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp015022.pdf

Proposed project: Upper Stone Canyon Reservoir – construct a new buried concrete-covered reservoir with 3 ft of topsoil and shallow rooting plant species typical of the canyon; allow public access for passive recreation (pedestrian trails), to be operated by LADPR and/or the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority. See Section ES-1 of Draft EIR for a summary. See Section 2 of the Draft or Table 2-1 starting on page 1-16 in the Final for a good summary of the proposed alternatives and the impacts for a comprehensive overview of the project.

Project Objectives: Comply with EPA updated water quality standards and preserve local water storage capability to maintain reliability and flexibility; secondary objective to help restore the natural character of Stone Canyon. See ES-3 of the Draft.

Financial investment: $140m over 60 years (see ES-9 of the Draft) for the proposed project. Floating cover alternative $35m and $80m for aluminum.

Recreation: Create parking for 25 vehicles; no other amenities. A gate to prevent after hours use. All access through Mulholland Drive. Trails to be established on east and west sides of reservoir, with overlooks to Lower Stone Reservoir. Trails also established on the buried concrete cover. Exact placement of trails TBD with input from neighboring communities. Peak use estimated at 75 visitors per day on weekends and 31 per day on weekdays. See section ES-9, ES-10 and ES-12 of the Draft.

Time frame: 4 years to complete; construction start in late 2015. See ES-11 of the Draft.

Traffic: All construction vehicles route (incl. delivery and hauling) would be between I-405 and the entry via Skirball Center Drive and Mulholland Drive.

The EIR goes to the DWP Board for adoption on Feb 7th. For questions or comments please email: hillside@beverlyglen.org

Beverly Glen Residents:

There will be a protest at the Hotel Bel-Air on FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14th, likely starting at 4 pm, but possibly earlier.  Expect traffic on Sunset between Stone Canyon and Beverly Glen to be more difficult than usual during Friday rush hour.

Here’s the link to additional information from the Bel-Air Association.

Additionally, Beverly Glen will be completely closed between Ventura Blvd and Mulholland Blvd on Saturday, October 15th and Sunday, October 16th from 6 am to 6 pm for resurfacing.  Expect additional delays around Mulholland as people will have to be diverted to the east and west.

Thanks for your patience with these issues.  We will bring you additional information as soon as we access it.

Hello Neighbors!

I have received a very large power point presentation from Metro that updates the community on the improvements to the 405.  It’s 62 pages total and I was not able to post the whole thing here.  If you are interested in the whole document (10 MB), please e-mail traffic@beverlyglen.org and I’ll send it to you.

The improvements to the Sunset Bridge, including information about the closure of Sunset Blvd. are included in the three segments attached below.

If you have any questions, you can contact Metro’s community relations person for this segment, Olga Arroyo – her e-mail is arroyoo@metro.net (not a typo, there are 2 o’s at the end of her e-mail address).

Here’s the Sunset Bridge portion of the presentation – I had to break it down into three segments to get it posted here.  Closure information (between Sept. 30 and October 15) is listed in the final document (“sunset c”).

sunset a

sunset b

sunset c

At long last the Baseline Hillside Ordinance was signed and becomes effective May 9th, 2011. As you may know the Ordinance provides guidelines for appropriate development of hillside communities in Los Angeles. For more information please visit the Zoning & Development page of our website: http://beverlyglen.org/news/zoning-development/

The City Attorney’s Office has completed their draft of the Baseline Hillside Ordinance (BHO). The BHO was heard by the City Council today and received 10 Yes votes and 0 No votes. The BHO is an significant amendment to the Los Angeles Municipal Code that deals with single-family residential zoned lots in hillside areas. The Ordinance will go back to the City Council one more time for a “Second Reading” next Friday, March 18, 2011. It will only need 8 votes to be officially adopted.

To learn more about how this regulation affects the Beverly Glen community and its next steps please visit: http://beverlyglen.org/news/zoning-development/

Thanks to all who were able to donate to the efforts of the Mountains and Recreation and Conservation Authority per our prior posting.  We received an update that they were able to receive enough donations to make their payment (in particular thanks to two major donors).

Only obstacles are ensuring the City Council gets the approval through two committees (ITGA on 9/27 and Budget & Finance on 10/4) then to City Council for approval.

We’ll keep you posted!

As some of you may or may not know, the Mountains Recreation and Conversation Authority (established by Joint Authority in 1985) has been working to acquire (from the City of Los Angeles), 77 lots around the Beverly Glen area to help preserve those open lots.  The MRCA has negotiated with the City to use some of those proceeds to help the MRCA acquire the large undeveloped land by Laurel Canyon and Mulholland to preserve as open space.

The owner of the Laurel Canyon land is looking to sell the land to a developer unless we can raise $40,000 fast to extend the MRCA deadline by TODAY!

Log onto http://www.mrca.ca.gov/laurel3.html where you can find more information, for both preserving our open land around our community and to prevent development in our neighboring community (which impacts the Glen), it is critical all Beverly Glen residents take time to pay attention to this situation.

Residents of Beverly Glen has been tracking the progress of an important amendment to the Los Angeles Municipal Code – the Baseline Hillside Ordinance. This affects all Glen residents in some fashion as it provides new guidance on the construction and remodeling of residential homes in hillside neighborhoods. For more information, click here.