BHCourier E-edition 071417

Page 1

Sunday Is National Ice Cream Day!

BEVERLY HILLS VOLUME: LII

NUMBER 28

www.bhcourier.com

SINCE 1965

July 14, 2017

Rent Stabilization Workshops Marred By Low Tenant Turnout

THIS ISSUE

The Wallis held its inaugural Corporate Leadership Event. 4

Hadid, 901 Strada Vecchia Sentencing Set For July 20 Doobie is this issue’s Adoptable Pet of the Week.

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The home where Howard Hughes crashed his plane is listed for $14.45M. 8 •Health & Wellness •Sports •Birthdays

10 14 18

Carole and Bill Haber Were Hosts Extraordinaire During Summers At Their Luxurious Chateau, La Roche D’Amboille, In France’s Loire Valley. The Former CAA Founding Partner Is Now A Major Broadway Producer

• Announcements • Real Estate • Rentals • Sales • and More

building code with several unapproved features, including concrete decks, retaining walls, basements and stairways. More than 10 Orders to Comply and Stop Work Orders to the property went ignored over the years, leading up to an April 2015 visit from L.A. building inspectors, who found numerous examples of unapproved and unpermitted construction on the site. Last month, Hadid - through his attorney Robert Shapiro - pled (see ‘901 STRADA VECCHIA’ page 19)

‘Saturday Night Live,’ ‘Westworld’ Lead Primetime Emmy Nominations

George Christy, Page 6

CLASSIFIEDS

By Matt Lopez Megamansion developer Mohamed Hadid and his 901 Strada Vecchia property in Bel-Air are finally on the chopping block for sentencing in a hearing set for next Thursday. The hearing is set for Thursday, July 20 at Van Nuys Superior Court West at 8:30 a.m. City officials allege that the nearly 30,000-square-foot Hadiddesigned home – which includes an illegally-built subterranean 70seat IMAX theater – violated L.A.

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By Matt Lopez NBC's variety series Saturday Night Live, re-invigorated with its lampooning of President Donald Trump, and HBO's dystopic Westworld each scored a leading 22 nominations Thursday for the 69th annual Primetime Emmy Awards. NBC’s This is Us broke an extended drought among broadcast networks by earning a nomination in the outstanding drama series category. It's the first time a broadcast network program has been nominated in the category since CBS' The Good Wife in

2011. Also nominated for outstanding drama series were AMC's Better Call Saul, Netflix's The Crown, Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, Netflix’s House Of Cards, Netflix’s Stranger Things and Westworld. HBO's Game Of Thrones, the winner in the category the past two years, wasn’t eligible to be nominated because its only new episodes aired during the eligibility period were part of the body of work considered for last year’s victory. (see ‘EMMY NOMINATIONS’ page 19)

discussions. At the end of the evening, about a third of the attendees had left; 37 landlords and 23 tenants remained. Proposals were drafted from roundtable discussions and Singh asked for a show of hands for support. With landlords comprising the bulk of the audience, 21 supported performance-based rent increases based on habitability standards while 27 voted to separate small (2-6 units) from larger landlords. Fourteen people (mostly tenants) supported tying rents to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), and 27 voted on increases being raised to between three and eight percent annually with pass-throughs for capital improvements. (see ‘BEVERLY HILLS RENT’ page 19)

Beverly Hills School District Continues Fight Against Metro Today By Laura Coleman Nearly a year after U.S. District Court Judge George H. Wu made his final ruling on Beverly Hills Unified School District v. Federal Transit Administration., et. al., representatives from both sides are expected to return to court this morning before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena. This morning’s hearing before a panel of three judges marks the latest effort by BHUSD to derail a plan by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) to run a subway tunnel under Beverly Hills High School. “The current alignment

goes through the heart of the Beverly Hills High School campus creating safety uncertainties and directly impacting our modernization and future development,” said BHUSD Superintendent Michael Bregy. “There are alternative feasible alignment options available and we have a very reasonable compromise proposal we would like to share.” Although Judge Wu refused to vacate the Record of Decision when he made his ruling final in August 2016, which would have ultimately compelled Metro to reconsider its decision to tunnel under BHHS, he did rule that the Federal Transit Administration (see ‘METRO SUBWAY’ page 9)

SHOULD PEOPLE  YOU KNOW — Eloise and John Paul DeJoria welcomed friends to the West Coast premeire of his documentary, Good Fortune, about his “rags-to-riches” philanthropy at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills. Michael Bezjian

LET’S DANCE— Catskills West Theatre Arts Day Camp, offered by the City of Beverly Hills’ Community Services Department, is one of more than 20 summer camps offered from June through August. Pictured above: Aladdin was performed by the Lower Catskills West children ages 5-10, at Greystone Mansion to a crowd of more than 500 people on June 30. For more information about camps, programs, classes and activities offered through the City, visit www.beverlyhills.org/bhregonline.

By Victoria Talbot Renters made a poor showing at the second scheduled rent stabilization workshop Wednesday, being outnumbered by landlords about 2:1 in a crucial discussion on rent increases. The low turnout led to a lopsided discussion that favored landlords, who repeatedly claimed they needed seven to eight percent rent increases. Renters present at the meeting decried such an annual increase, and supported the current three percent cap. “I encourage you to bring other tenants next week,” said Sukhsimranjit Singh, associate director of the Strauss Institute for Dispute Resolution and Professor of Law at Pepperdine University, who is leading the

For more photos, see George Christy’s column on page 6.


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