A Los Angeles spec mansion in the beginning stages of construction by Mohamed Hadid, a real estate developer and father of supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid, may soon be reduced to rubble.
Gigi Hadid. Wikimedia.
Los Angeles city attorneys have filed a motion asking a judge to force Hadid to tear down the partially built mansion that has been the cause of a criminal charge, a civil suit and a major FBI investigation. Back in 2017, Hadid pleaded no contest to violating city codes when building the 30,000-square-foot estate at 901 Strada Vecchia Road into the side of a mountain. Some neighbors also filed a civil suit accusing Hadid of weakening the hillside on which the mansion was built and putting those who lived below it at risk.
Over the past two years, Hadid has torn down parts of the estate and worked with city officials to get the construction project up to code as part of his probation sentence. (He was also sentenced to 200 hours of community service and ordered to pay the City of Los Angeles more than $14,000 in damages and $3,000 in fines.) While this was going on, the FBI has also been looking into allegations that Hadid had given a city inspector expensive gifts and “items of value” to get him to sign off on the project, according to the L.A. Times.
In their latest motion, city officials are asking that the previous sentence be modified to order Hadid to tear down the entire structure, leaving only its foundation, after a structural engineer found key problems in the structure supporting the estate. The piles, or columns that go down into the bedrock to support a structure, have raised particular concern. Inspectors said they are not drilled in deep enough to support a building of that size.
Bella Hadid. Wikimedia.
“Building and safety rules have to matter — not just for some, but for everyone,” city attorney Mike Feuer told the L.A. Times. “We’re continuing to fight to toughen probation conditions and assure this structure meets every requirement.And if that means taking the building down to its foundation, so be it.”
Hadid has repeatedly said he has done nothing wrong and pled “no contest” only to move the case forward. He has also called the investigations against him a “witch hunt.”