The Gated Municipality of Hidden Hills, California

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Written By H. Pike Oliver

Hidden Hills, California, is a completely gated municipality with the main entry at the northwest quadrant of the interchange of the US 101 (Ventura) Freeway and Valley Circle Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley of the Los Angeles area. ImageThere are just 626 housing units in this equestrian oriented neighborhood, all of which are on relatively large lots.  According to the United States Census, the population of the 1.68 square mile community in 2010 was1,856.

Development of Hidden Hills began in 1950 when  A. E. Hanson put up a sign on Ventura Boulevard at the intersection of Long Valley Road announcing  the availability of one-acre lots for $4,750.  A lot that had been cleared of a former residence reportedly sold for $1.6 million in 2011.

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The community is home to many noted entertainment industry celebrities. Numerous business owners and executives also live within this exclusive enclave.  One of the more notorious residents is David Sambol who Paul Muolo and Matthew Padilla identified as one of the major players in the subprime mortgage crisis in their 2008 book Chain of Blame.

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H. Pike Oliver

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, H. Pike Oliver has worked on real estate development strategies and master-planned communities since the early 1970s, including nearly eight years at the Irvine Company. He resided in the City of Irvine for five years in the 1980s and nine years in the 1990s.

As the founder and sole proprietor of URBANEXUS, Oliver works on advancing equitable and sustainable real estate development and natural lands management. He is also an affiliate instructor at the Runstad Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington.

Early in his career, Oliver worked for public agencies, including the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research where he was a principal contributor to An Urban Strategy for California. Prior to relocating to Seattle in 2013, Oliver taught real estate development at Cornell University and directed the undergraduate program in urban and regional studies. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the American Planning Association and a founder and emeritus member of the California Planning Roundtable.

Oliver is a graduate of the urban studies and planning program at San Francisco State University and earned a master’s degree in urban planning at UCLA.

https://urbanexus.com
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