Neighbors Sue Real Estate Mogul Mohamed Hadid Over Expansive Bel-Air Mansion
BEL-AIR (CBSLA) – Several Bel-Air residents have filed a lawsuit this week against multimillionaire real estate developer Mohamed Hadid and the city of Los Angeles over his controversial and unfinished 30,000-square-foot mega-mansion.
In 2014, the city demanded that the 69-year-old Hadid, father of supermodels Bella and Gigi Hadid, stop construction on the mansion, saying the structure at 901 Strada Vecchia Rd. was being built larger and taller than the city had authorized. The city again ordered him to halt construction in 2015.
City officials also said the building included a series of unapproved features, including concrete decks, retaining walls, basements, stairways and even a subterranean IMAX theater.
Despite officials pulling Hadid's building permits and issuing stop-work orders, construction continued anyway, prompting the L.A. City Attorney's office to bring charges against him.
In May of 2017, Hadid pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of building a non-permitted structure, failing to bring the building into conformance and failing to comply with an order issued by the city Department of Building and Safety. He was sentenced to three years of probation, ordered to perform 200 hours of community service and pay $3,000 in fines.
Following his sentencing, Hadid turned in revised plans for the house, which are still under review with the building department, and says he is working to get approval for a smaller home that falls in line with current codes, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Neighbors living downhill are suing him and the city of L.A., contending that the city has failed to enforce its own order, which demands that builders of the Bel-Air home either get city approval or tear down "all unauthorized, unapproved construction."
In the meantime, the neighbors say that they live in constant fear of the hillside collapsing.
CBS2's Dave Lopez spoke to Bel-Air residents who said they were sick of looking at the growing mansion.
In their lawsuit, Bel-Air residents John and Judith Bedrosian and Beatriz and Joseph Horacek urge the court to order Hadid to remove "all improvements" on the property and fully restore the hillside between his and their properties, bringing the slope back to the same condition it was in when Hadid bought the site.
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