Hancock

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By ELIZABETH HAYES

Staff Reporter

Hancock Park, with its manicured lawns and classic mansions, would seem to be back in vogue as one of L.A.’s most elegant neighborhoods.

Home values are on the rise, and Hollywood’s elite have rediscovered the architectural treasures from the 1920s that are common in this part of the city.

But the peaceful, tree-lined streets of Hancock Park conceal a neighborhood under pressure.

Even as movie stars like Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith plop down millions to buy mansions in the area, there’s no telling how long the good times will last. As an island of affluence surrounded by lower-income neighborhoods, with no gates to provide a sense of security for residents, Hancock Park is considered more vulnerable than the secluded enclaves in other parts of the city.

In 1992, rioting broke out to the north of the neighborhood in Hollywood, as well as along Wilshire Boulevard.

“There was a sense that the area was encircled by the unrest,” said James Wolf, president of the Hancock Park Homeowners Association. “Anyone thinking of making a purchase may have taken the Hancock Park area off their list for a while.”

Property values, which peaked in 1989, fell 20 percent to 25 percent in the early to mid-’90s. Crime remains a concern for some. Out of 1,200 homes in Hancock Park, 800 subscribe to a private security service.

Most crime in the area is non-violent, such as stolen cars and car radios. “It’s proactive,” Wolf said. “Crime in our area is low, but we have a low threshold of acceptance.”

Some accuse Hancock Park of having a low threshold of acceptance for diversity as well.

No longer just a stronghold of old-line families of doctors, lawyers and corporate executives, Hancock Park and Windsor Square to the east (which is often lumped with Hancock Park) have attracted new blood, including Koreans and Orthodox Jews.

The result has been conflicts, particularly involving religious practices of the Orthodox community, which sometimes uses local homes for services.

Wolf says that for the most part, owners of the homes have stopped holding services after being approached by neighbors and told the meetings violate the city code.

“This isn’t a religious issue. It’s a land-use issue,” he said.

But Congregation Etz Chaim has filed suit against the city of Los Angeles, charging that when the city denied it a conditional-use permit to use a Third Street home as a synagogue it violated its right to religious freedom.

As that suit winds its way through the courts, the home is being used for services almost daily, Wolf said. Renee Weitzer, chief planning deputy for City Councilman John Ferraro, gets complaints almost every day from Hancock Park residents over the use of the home for religious events.

Tension has also arisen over plans to move the Yavneh Hebrew Academy this fall from its current location on Beverly Boulevard to the former Whittier Law School on Third Street.

The City Council last summer granted the pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school a conditional use permit to operate a facility for about 500 children. The homeowners association is not opposed to the school, but a half-dozen residents have appealed the permit in court, arguing that no environmental impact report was prepared.

A Superior Court judge ruled in the school’s favor, but the six neighbors have taken the matter to the state Court of Appeals.

Because of the school’s religious nature, the dispute has taken on uglier overtones than an earlier controversy over expansion of the elite Marlborough School for girls. That decade-long conflict was resolved earlier this year in a compromise hammered out by city zoning officials. The school will be allowed to raze a block of 1920s-era mansions to make way for a soccer field, parking lot and swimming pool.

Some supporters of the Yavneh move have accused opponents of anti-Semitism.

“The issue, in my opinion, is that the neighbors don’t like the fact that Orthodox Jews are moving into the neighborhood,” said David Hager, a resident and supporter of the school.

Larry Faigin, one of the homeowners who is appealing the school’s permit, counters that his primary concern is traffic. The academy will be next to a public elementary school that has 800 students and is a drop-off point for magnet schools.

“This is a land-use issue. I’ve been distressed they’ve characterized it as an anti-Semitic issue,” he said.

Walter Feinblum, a resident and chairman of Yavneh’s board, says the school has agreed to numerous conditions to appease neighbors including the expenditure of $1 million on soundwalls, landscaping and other mitigation measures.

The academy also agreed to restrictions on the hours it would use the facilities. About 30 percent of the students will be able to walk to the school from the neighborhood.

“We will add an element of growth to the area and maintain the property, said David Rubin, the school’s president and a neighborhood resident. “What our acquisition of the property does is maybe raise a lot of attention to some of the shifting demographics from the old guard to the new, and maybe some of that underlying concern.”

For all the growing pains and conflicts, many Hancock Park residents remain fiercely loyal to their neighborhood, and insist that it has changed little over the decades. Indeed, the area enjoys a sense of community found in few parts of urban Los Angeles. Neighbors throw block parties and bump into each other regularly at the shops in Larchmont Village.

“Times change, but many of the things people have found Hancock Park to be an attraction remain today virtually as much as they did years ago when my parents first moved there,” Wolf said.

Meanwhile, home prices have recently risen back to pre-recession levels, said Susan Chadney, associate manager for Fred Sands Realtors on Larchmont Boulevard.

“There are a lot of houses over a million dollars,” Chadney said. “You often get multiple offers over the asking price.”

The difference these days is the type of buyers, compared with years past.

“Most of the people buying now in Hancock Park are in the film business entertainment attorneys, sound and camera people, and actors and actresses,” Chadney said. “There’s always been a scattering, but I’ve noticed it more and more.”

Film stars Banderas and Griffith recently purchased a Hancock Park home for $4.2 million. “Seinfeld” alumnus Jason Alexander and movie actress Elizabeth Perkins also live in Hancock Park.

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