Prolific megamansion builder Mohamed Hadid’s partially built Bel Air estate might soon be nothing but a memory.
The Los Angeles city attorney filed a motion November 1 in Los Angeles County Superior Court requesting to modify the sentence Hadid received in a criminal case brought by the city. The city attorney’s office now wants Hadid to be required to demolish the entire mansion. The Los Angeles Times was the first to report the filing.
City officials had been negotiating with Hadid to try to find a way to finish building the megamansion in a way that would comply with orders from the city’s department of building and safety. Hadid has already removed an entire floor of the project and other parts of the house that he did not have the correct permits for.
But moving on from there proved difficult. Hadid gave city officials a plan for “modifications that will provide adequate foundation support for the project as it is currently envisioned,” court records say, but building and safety officials were unconvinced.
After reviewing the proposal, LADBS general manager Frank Bush told the city attorney in a letter that “In order to bring the property into compliance, the existing structure, except the in-ground piles foundation, must be removed.” Bush said that one element of the project—the foundational columns driven deep into the ground—must remain “for stability.”
In 2015, the city filed misdemeanor charges against Hadid for construction without proper permits and failing to comply with orders from the building and safety department. Hadid pled no contest in 2017, and was sentence to pay fines, do community service, and work to bring the property into compliance or, barring that, demolish it.
Hadid was also the focus of a civil suit filed by neighbors of the mansion, who charged that the construction had weakened the hillside on which the residence sits. The Times reported in 2018 that an FBI investigation was underway concerning gifts that Hadid had allegedly given to a city inspector working on the dwelling.
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