North Hills, Los Angeles

North Hills, known previously as Sepulveda, is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California.

North Hills was originally part of an agricultural community known as Mission Acres. After WWII, the newly developed suburban community was renamed Sepulveda, after the prominent Sepúlveda family of California. In 1991, it was renamed North Hills.

Location
The neighborhood of North Hills is located in the central San Fernando Valley, a region of the city of Los Angeles. It is intersected by the 405 Freeway and lies between Bull Creek and the Pacoima Wash. By road, it is 21 miles northwest of downtown; In relation to the cities surrounding Los Angeles, the neighborhood is about 17 miles north of Santa Monica by road, 16 miles east of Simi Valley, 14 miles southwest of Calabasas, 13 miles northwest of Burbank, 12 miles south of Santa Clarita, and 4 miles southwest of San Fernando. Surrounding neighborhoods are Northridge to the west, Panorama City to the east, Van Nuys to the south, and Granada Hills and Mission Hills to the north.

Overlapping Area codes 747 and 818 serve the area. The North Hills ZIP code is 91343.

Neighborhood boundaries and area
While neighborhood boundaries in the Los Angeles are generally informal, the official boundaries used by the North Hills East and West neighborhood council districts would make the neighborhood a 4.31 sqmi area between Bull Creek and the Pacoima Wash on the west and east respectively. The southern boundary is Roscoe Boulevard, starting on Bull Creek and ending at the Pacoima Wash; North Hills East includes a panhandle of land south of Roscoe Boulevard to the Coast Line railroad between the 405 Freeway and Sepulveda Boulevard. The northern boundary is Lassen Street, west from the Pacoima Wash to Woodley Avenue. Since 2012, North Hills is bounded by the community of Woodley Hill in Northridge which occupies a square area at the northwest area of the neighborhood bounded by Woodley Avenue in the west and Plummer Street in the south. The North Hills East and West neighborhood councils are separated by the 405 Freeway; the West district has an area of 2.38 sqmi and the East has an area of 1.93 sqmi.

Other sources, notably the Los Angeles Times' Mapping L.A. project, extend the neighborhoods boundaries to Balboa Boulevard and Bull Creek ("the wash") on the west, and Devonshire and Lassen Street on the north, mostly to include the North Hills Shopping Center which is also claimed by Granada Hills.

History
In the late 18th century, the land of modern North Hills along with most of the San Fernando Valley became land under the jurisdiction of the Mission San Fernando Rey de España. After the independence of Mexico from Spain, an 1833 government decree led to the secularization of the missions in Alta and Baja California and the San Fernando Mission was officially secularized in 1834. The mission became the head of a parish and the government commissioned a mayordomo to oversee the process of secularization and to administer the former mission land.

Rancho land
In 1845, governor Pío Pico signed a 9-year land lease, at $1,120 per year, to his brother Andrés Pico and his business partner Juan Manso who used it for cattle ranching. In the wake of the American intervention in Mexico, the governor put the land up for sale as the Rancho Ex-Misión de San Fernando to raise funds. The ranch lands were sold to Spanish merchant Eulogio de Celis for $14,000 in June 17, 1846. A portion of land lying just north of modern North Hills surrounding the mission complex was reserved for Andrés Pico and became known as the Pico Reserve.

The Mexican armed resistance to the American intervention ceased in the beginning of 1848 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded the California Territory to the United States. The Treaty provided that the Mexican land grants would be honored and American officials acquired Spanish and Mexican records to confirm titles.

Eulogio de Celis filed his claim to the rancho lands in October 1852, but the land grant was not formally upheld by the U.S. District Court until January 1873, after he had returned to Spain and four years after his death. In the mean time, Andrés Pico paid de Celis' lawyer, Edward Vischer, $15,000 for an undivided half-interest in the rancho in 1854, the same year Pico's lease expired. The land was divided along a line which roughly follows Roscoe Boulevard, now considered North Hills' southern boundary, and the southern half was sold to Pico. Andrés eventually sold his half-interest in the rancho to his brother Pío in 1862, retaining the 2,000 acre Pico Reserve; in turn, Pío sold the interest to the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association for $115,000 in 1869; this association went through several name changes, eventually becoming the Los Angeles Farming and Milling Company.

In a 1871 plat of the rancho, the North Hills area is shown to be an undeveloped land crossed by a road which led to the Pico Reserve and the mission in the north from the Rancho Los Encinos in the south. A sheep camp is shown to have been located just north of the ranch partition line on the west bank of the Pacoima Wash, which corresponds to the southeast end of modern North Hills. De Celis died in Spain in 1869 and his son Eulogio F. de Celis returned as the administrator of his father's estate which was later finally patented to his father by the government in January 8, 1873. After negotiations between the heirs of de Celis and the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association, the valley was formally divided into north and south. The heirs then sold the remaining northern half of the rancho, which includes present-day North Hills, to Charles Maclay and George K. Porter in 1875 for $125,000. With this, the Rancho era essentially ended in the San Fernando Valley; land divisions continued, what remained of the original mission agriculture fell into disuse, and the remaining indigenous population nearly disappeared from the region.

Porter land
The former rancho land was placed under Porter's name and he owned a three-fourths interest in the property, with Maclay owning the remaining quarter. Porter saw the valley as a site with potential for agricultural development, whereas Maclay was more focused on its colonization. In order to pay off the de Celis mortgage, they counted on the success of the town of San Fernando, which had then been newly platted along the Southern Pacific Railroad. A local bank failure and the departure of railroad workers led to a collapse in the real estate boom which made Maclay turn to renting land for sheep pasture and farming; then, a drought in 1876 and 1877 led to the failure of grain fields and the death of tens of thousands of sheep.

Maclay was unable to meet the mortgage and de Celis filed for foreclosure in July 1876; the Los Angeles district court found Maclay personally liable for the mortgage payment in June 1877 and ordered the sale of his quarter interest, and that if the sale was insufficient to meet the mortgage, then Porter's interest would also be sold. While they managed to delay the foreclosure for two years, the interest accumulated. In July 1879, the Maclay portion was sold to Benjamin F. Porter and, because the sale amount was insufficient, George Porter's remaining share was sold to Josefa A. de Celis. George managed to reobtain his interest in April 1880 thanks to his agent, Francis M. Wright, a valley farmer. In February 1881, Maclay and the Porters reached an agreement to partition the land. Maclay kept a third of the land lying north of the railroad and east of the Pacoima Wash called the Maclay Rancho, the Porters kept the remaining two-thirds to the west. In 1881, the Porter cousins split their holdings and George received the portion between the Pacoima Wash in the east and Aliso Canyon, about current-day Zelzah Avenue, in the west. George Porter's land included all of current North Hills.

In 1887, George K. Porter subdivided the land and established the Porter Land and Water Company to take advantage of a land sales boom. Nearly 17,000 acres were subdivided into ten and forty acre lots with an irrigation system sufficient for 4,000 acres. John B. Baskin, a partner and sales agent of the company began an extensive marketing and promotional campaign for the land subdivision; a frequent motif of the marketing is the remains of the mission which was surrounded by the tract. Baskin also hired California State Engineer William Hammond Hall to develop an irrigation plan for water derived from the local springs and arroyos like the Pacoima Wash. The boom began to fade by the end of 1888 and went bust the next year with internal company problems and declining national and local economies which preceded the Panic of 1893; the decline would also be exacerbated by severe droughts in the 1890s. In October of 1903, Porter sold his firm and transferred remaining lands to a syndicate led by Leslie C. Brand which was incorporated as the San Fernando Mission Land Company.

Community development
The 21st century began with important developments for the San Fernando Valley which led to its rapid settlement. In 1905, the City of Los Angeles announced its plans to bring water to the city from the Owens Valley and began construction on the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1908; the future arrival of water to the valley spurred development. The southern half of the former rancho lands were bought from the Los Angeles Farming and Milling Co. by a syndicate incorporated as the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company, and the towns of Van Nuys, Marion, and Owensmouth were planned out along with a system of highways. The Pacific Electric Railway also began an expansion into the valley which reached the burgeoning community of Van Nuys in December 1911, and was completed with its arrival in the city of San Fernando in March 1913, allowing better connections to Los Angeles from the valley. The San Fernando Mission Land Co. began to market its then over 16,000 acres of land to the public in April 1912, advertising five, ten, and fifteen acre tracts adapted to citriculture and other agricultural uses.

In October 1912, The Angeles Mesa Land Company purchased Henry E. Huntington's one-tenth share in the Mission Land property holdings. The companies began to invest in the extension of the railway to San Fernando and the construction of a 4-mile boulevard, named Brand Boulevard, to connect San Fernando to Van Nuys on Sherman Way, hoping to open it for use when the Los Angeles Aqueduct is inaugurated. Work on Brand Boulevard advanced and workers began to spread asphalt on the first mile by mid-1913; one side of the road was designed for exclusive use by automobiles, while the other was multi-use for trucks, heavy wagons, and horse-drawn vehicles. The aqueduct water reached the valley in November, 1913.

Mission Acres was an agricultural community made by early developers who created 1 acre plots for agricultural activities, with irrigation supplied by the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. The community was a stop for the Pacific Electric railway streetcars that transported passengers from downtown Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley.

Residents of Mission Acres renamed the area Sepulveda in 1927. The Californio Sepulveda family, going back to the founding of the Pueblo of Los Angeles, is the source of various Los Angeles place-names, including the post-war community of Sepulveda. Sepulveda Boulevard is the primary north–south street through North Hills, crossing Sepulveda Pass to the south. The community saw significant growth between the 1930s and the 1950s.

In 1937, councilman Jim Wilson offered a resolution that instructed the city's real estate agent to make the right of way cost appraisal for diverting flood waters from Wilson and East Canyons into Pacoima Wash to protect the community of Sepulveda from floods that occurred during heavy storms. This same year, the Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church was built and the parish was established years later in 1944.

Post World War II
The area remained mostly rural through the 1940s, urbanization initiated during the 1950s during which the entire San Fernando Valley was experiencing a transition from semi-rural and agricultural uses into suburban development patterns. Multi-family residential units began to be developed in the 1960s.

Before the construction of the 405, Sepulveda Boulevard was a major highway and the neighborhood became a stopping point for travelers to and from Los Angeles. Motels began to be established along Sepulveda. Among these motels is the Good Knight Inn, which began construction in 1945 and featured a façade designed to resemble a castle; by 2023, the motel has continued to run and has retained much of its original form.

The Our Lady of Peace Catholic school was being built by 1951 and began to hold classes that year, the school building was officially completed in 1954, followed by various additions. Later that year of 1954, the new Our Lady of Peace church designed by Armet and Davis was completed; the former church structure was repurposed by the parish as Schneider's Hall. By 1956, the school was the largest elementary school in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and remained so for two more years.

Plummer Elementary School, designed in the International style by E. R. C. Billerbeck for LAUSD, was completed in 1952.

The Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital was completed in a 160-acre property in 1955.

After four years of construction, Francisco Sepulveda Junior High School, designed by architect Arthur Froelich in the International style, was completed in 1960.

In 1991, residents of the western half of Sepulveda, west of the San Diego Freeway, voted to secede from the eastern section to form a new community named North Hills. The City of Los Angeles soon changed the name of remaining Sepulveda to North Hills also. The city then formed a new sub-neighborhood of "North Hills West" which begins west of the 405 freeway and goes to Bull Creek Wash/Balboa Blvd. and from Roscoe Blvd. to Devonshire St. The eastern section became the sub-neighborhood of North Hills East.

North Hills East boundaries are east of the 405-San Diego Freeway, along the Pacoima Wash, South of Lassen, and North of Roscoe.

In June 1999, a damaged airplane landed safely on Hayvenhurst Avenue on its way to Van Nuys Airport.

By the year 2000, the neighborhood had a population of 52,333; Compared to 1990, North Hills had a population increase of 22% by the year 2000, among the highest total increase in the Valley, with a significant increase in Latino American (73.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (52.6%) residents.

Between January 2010 and January 2011, 300 residents of the community of Woodley Hill signed a petition, initiated by resident Estelle R. Goldman, to separate from North Hills, citing that their issues and property values relate more to Northridge. Woodley Hills is bounded by Lassen and Plummer on the north and south, and by Bull Creek and Woodley on the west and east. The petition was received and filed by the city in April, 2011. The Northridge East Neighborhood Council supported the petition; meanwhile, North Hills West opposed the renaming, stating that property values effects would be minimal and insignificant, that Woodley Hill is a desirable area along with western North Hills and that it would turn Woodley Hill into a less desirable part of Northridge, that stakeholders would potentially want to extend Northridge to the 405 Freeway, that their issues are substantially similar to those of North Hills, and that the change would cause confusion. In early 2012, Goldman stated that she then felt that her statement concerning property values and issues was naïve and she wished to correct it. She amended the reasoning, stating that residents' concerns were that they did not send their children to North Hills Schools, they did not shop in North Hills, and that the nature of the community is purely residential with no businesses or apartments compared to North Hills; she further stated that residents identify more with Northridge because of community interests and socio-economic background. The application eventually gained approval and was adopted on August 3, 2012. While it was initially claimed that neighborhood council boundaries would not be changed, the North Hills West Neighborhood Council approved the transfer of Woodley Hills to Northridge East on March 22, 2013, followed by approval by Northridge East on April 17, and the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners in July.

On December 6, 2014, a celebration was held for the opening of the over 13,000 square foot Nanak Sadan Sikh Temple and Community Center at Nordhoff Street, followed by the celebration of a regular evening diwan.

In late March 2016, a local man, Shehada Issa, murdered his wife, Rabihah, and later his son, Amir "Rocky" Issa, at their home on the 1500 block of Rayen Street in North Hills East. Prosecutors found that Amir's sexual orientation was a motivating factor for his murder, later also classified as a hate crime. It was the second killing of an LGBTQ person in the San Fernando Valley in two years, occurring a year after the murder of a trans woman in neighboring Van Nuys. The murder quickly drew attention from the gay community, and local community group Somos Familia Valle organized a rally on April 4 at Sepulveda Boulevard and Nordhoff Street calling for family acceptance towards LGBTQ children and an end to discrimination and violence in the valley's neighborhoods. In September 2017, Shehada Issa was convicted of two counts of first degree murder with Amir's murder being enhanced as a hate crime, and was sentenced to life in prison; there was an attempt to appeal the conviction, but the state appellate court ruled that there was overwhelming evidence of Issa's guilt and in May 2020 the state's Supreme Court refused to review the case.

As of 2020, about 242 (1.3%) of the approximately 17,977 occupied structures in North Hills were built in 1939 or earlier, 34.9% were built from 1940 to 1959, 34% from 1960 to 1979, 5.2% from 2000 to 2009, 0.9% from 2010 to 2013, and 1% from 2014 or later.

Local government
North Hills is governed locally by the City of Los Angeles and is represented in the Los Angeles City Council by the members elected for districts 6, 7 and 12; each district includes three different sections of the neighborhood.

Neighborhood Councils
Both North Hills East and North Hills West Neighborhood Councils work together to improve the overall quality of life in North Hills communities.

North Hills West Neighborhood Council was certified in 2003. Their slogan is "Fostering Community," and its logo is of a green tree in the city. The 2012-2014 North Hills West Neighborhood Council was seated into office on September 20, 2012. A northwestern section became part of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council in 2013.

North Hills East Neighborhood Council was certified in 2010. It has a growing, multicultural group of neighbors dedicated to service and community activism. In early 2014, North Hills East Neighborhood Council was approved as an Official Certifying Organization for the President's Volunteer Service Awards program, which is an initiative of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the same organization responsible for AmeriCorps and Senior Corps. This status as an Official Certifying Organization has enabled the North Hills East Neighborhood Council to verify hours and eligibility for volunteers to receive an award, which, depending on number of hours worked can range from a pin to a personalized letter from the President of the United States. More about the awards can be found here: www.presidentialserviceawards.gov Volunteers do not have to be a resident or stakeholder of North Hills East to qualify for a President's Volunteer Service Award.

Federal and State legislature representation
The neighborhood is represented federally by the congress member elected for California's 29th congressional district and both senators from California. On the state level, it is represented by the state assembly member elected for California's 46th State Assembly District and the state senator elected for California's 20th State Senate district.

2020 census
In the 2020 census, North Hills had a total population of 53,764 just within its Neighborhood Council boundaries. The population in the 91343 ZCTA was 62,595; this covers all of North Hills West and most of North Hills East boundaries, while including portions within Northridge East and Granada Hills South's boundaries. The average population density is about 10,591.4 per square mile within the ZTCA's 5.91 square miles. 31,132 people (49.7%) were identified as male and 31,463 (50.3%) as female. The 2020 age distribution was 14,684 people (23.5%) under 18, 6,599 people (10.5%) from 18 to 24, 17,925 people (28.6%) from 25 to 44, 15,458 people (24.7%) from 45 to 64, and 7,929 people (12.7%) who were 65 or older, The median age was 35.8.

Housing
There were 18,545 housing units, at an average density of 3,137.9 units per square mile, of which 18,117 units were occupied and 428 were vacant. 9,127 occupied units (50.4%) were owned; 7,470 (81.8% of owner-occupied units) were owned with a mortgage or a loan and the remaining 1,657 (18.2%) were owned free and clear. 8,990 units (49.6% of occupied units) were rented. In terms of household size, 2,828 units (14.6%) were 1-person households, 4,005 units (22.1%) had 2 people, 10,281 (56.7%) had 3 to 6 people, and 1,003 (5.5%) had 7 or more. 14,173 units (78.2%) were family households; 8,942 (63.1% of family households) were married couple family households and the remaining 5,231 (36.9%) were occupied by families with unmarried householders. 3,944 units (21.8%) were nonfamily households. Of vacant units, 211 were for rent and 13 were rented but not occupied, 17 were for sale and 21 were sold but not occupied, and 11 were for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use.

Race and ethnicity
In 2020, the makeup of racial identity in North Hills included: 16,580 (26.5%) people who identified as White, 2,704 (4.3%) as Black or African-American, 1,035 (1.7%) Native American, 9,606 (15.3%) Asian, 98 (0.02%) Pacific Islander, 23,701 (37.9%) identified as other races, and 8,871 (14.2%) as two or more races. 12,012 people identified as Non-Hispanic White (19.2% of total pop., 72.4% of White people).

36,701 people (58.6%) identified as Hispanic or Latino of any race. At 23,290 people, most Latinos (63.5%) identified as some other race, followed by 7,532 (20.5%) who identified with two or more races; 4,568 (12.4%) Latinos identified as White, 966 (3%) identified as Native American, and 166 (0.5%) identified as Black.

Other data
In 2009, the Los Angeles Times's "Mapping L.A." project supplied these North Hills community statistics: median household income: $52,456. Population size is 60,254 according to 2010 Census data. This summarizes both sides of the 405 freeway. The North Hills West neighborhood had 24,000 residents in 2009. The North Hills East neighborhood had nearly 40,000 residents in 2010.

According to Mapping L.A., Mexican (38.4%) and German (2.8%) were the most common ancestries. Mexico (47.3%) and El Salvador (12.2%) were the most common foreign places of birth in 2000.

The 91343 ZCTA had a 60.9% employment rate and had a median household income of $77,790 according to 2022 estimates.

Public schools
The community is served by schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Gledhill Street Elementary School, Langdon Avenue Elementary School, Mayall Street School, and Parthenia Street School serve North Hills.

Most students attend Sepulveda Middle School. Those students residing west of Woodley Avenue attend Holmes Middle School.

North Hills high school students attend James Monroe High School.

There are magnet programs in some schools, such as the Sepulveda Middle School which has a Gifted / High Ability Magnet, and Kennedy High School which has an Architecture/Digital Arts Magnet. A school bus is provided if pupils are more than 5 miles away from the school. North Hills West is also served by charter schools of all grades.

Local school district administration
North Hills schools are locally administered by the Regional Superintendent for LAUSD Region North. The neighborhood schools are represented in the LAUSD Board of Education by the members for district 3, which covers most of North Hills West, and district 6, which covers North Hills East and a portion of West including Gledhill Street Elementary and Monroe High.

Private schools
The private and parochial schools in North Hills include Valley Park Baptist, Valley Presbyterian School, Heritage Christian, Our Lady of Peace, and Church of the Living Word. Los Angeles Baptist High School also serves the community and in 2012, was combined with Heritage Christian High School.

Several North Hills residents serve as host families to international students studying in the US. As of early 2014, about 50 foreign exchange students are attending school in the North Hills area. Host families get to share their way of life and culture with the students, and at the same time learn more about the students and their home countries.

Public library
The Los Angeles Public Library Mid-Valley Regional Branch, one of the biggest in the San Fernando Valley, is located on Nordhoff Street at Woodley Avenue in North Hills.

Transport
California Interstate 405 has direct access to the neighborhood on two points: exit 68 on Roscoe Boulevard and exit 69 on Nordhoff Street. Main thoroughfares include Sepulveda and Roscoe Boulevards; Hayvenhurst, Woodley, and Haskell Avenues; Lassen, Plummer, and Nordhoff Streets. These thoroughfares, as is the case in the most of the San Fernando Valley, are arranged in a grid pattern with north–south ways labeled as avenues and east–west ways labeled as streets.

Bicycle infrastructure in the neighborhood includes marked street-side bike lanes on Devonshire Street, on Nordhoff Street starting eastward from Orion Avenue, Parthenia Street eastward from Burnet Avenue, and south–north lanes on Woodley Avenue. Plummer Street is designated as a bike route, allowing cyclists to share space with other vehicular traffic.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority operates Metro Bus local lines 152, 166, 167, 234, and 237 through the neighborhood and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation's Panorama City/Van Nuys DASH route also runs through part of the neighborhood.

Parks and recreation
There are few public parks and recreational facilities within the neighborhood. North Hills Community Park is a 3.895 acre recreational space in the more densely populated area of North Hills East, with a children's play areas and sports facilities which host several youth sports programs. The park was established in 2001 as Sepulveda Park West, and it continues to be the only proper recreational park within the neighborhood as of 2024. The Mid-Valley Library in North Hills West is in a 7.5 acre site which had been previously dedicated as the Nordhoff Recreation Center in 1978 before funds were available to build the library. The library building and parking spaces covered more than half of the original site when the park became the library campus in 1996, but an open grassy area with paved footpaths and benches remains.

More parkland and recreational facilities are located outside the neighborhood. The large, 10.587 acre, Sepulveda Recreation Center provides access to parkland and recreational facilities to residents, especially those in North Hills East. Despite sharing North Hills' former name, it is actually located in Panorama City, just outside the neighborhood's east boundary on the Pacoima Wash. Other parks near North Hills East include the Albert Piantanida Intergenerational Center, and Marson Street Pocket Park, both in Panorama City, as well as Devonwood Park in Mission Hills. To the west, Dearborn Park in Northridge also provides recreation and parkland to residents.

In 2022, there was an unsuccessful movement by community members and residents to prevent the construction of a new charter school on Plummer Street in North Hills East and promoting the creation of a park. They cited a desire to preserve and create a public use for a historic house on the site which dates to the settlement of Mission Acres and was designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, and the lack of green space in the neighborhood. While the house is to be preserved, plans went forward for the construction of the Valor Academy Elementary School.

Healthcare
North Hills is home to the large Veterans Administration Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center campus, which serves veterans in the San Fernando Valley, with residential and outpatient care.

Films
There are many locations in North Hills that have been used for various films such as "Terminator 2: Judgement Day", "Halloween (2007 film)", "Halloween II (2009 film)", "American Beauty (1999 film)", and "Step Brothers (film)".

Many of the films were shot in the Sepulveda VA Clinic to shoot large shots to captivate wide scenes, such as in the movie Step Brothers, the area is used to show a large fight between two men and a large group of kids. In one of the most famous scenes in the film Terminator 2: Judgement Day, after thinking John the main protagonist finally escaped the T-1000, due to some help from the T-800, John is surprised when the T-1000 drives a semi truck through the overpass wall of Bull Creek, a flood control channel located in North Hills.

Notable people

 * Bart Andrus, professional football coach and former collegiate player
 * Kerry Rossall, stuntman and actor
 * Sharon Shapiro, gymnast