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

The neighborhood of North Hills is located in the central San Fernando Valley, a region of the city of Los Angeles.

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

Their settlements, later called rancherías by the Spanish, were mostly located in the southern valley which was better irrigated in the dry season and provided shelter from winter floods; in the north valley were the villages of Paséknga, in modern-day San Fernando, and Pakoinga, of Tataviam etymology and located in modern Pacoima.

[22] 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.

[20][23] 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.

[27] 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.

[29] 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.

[31] 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.

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.

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.

[45] 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.

[48] The community was a stop for the Pacific Electric railway streetcars that transported passengers from downtown Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley.

[2] 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.

[52] 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.

[53] 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.

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

[57] 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.

[65] 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.

[77] 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.

[78][79][80] 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;[75][76] 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.

[100] In 2009, the Los Angeles Times's "Mapping L.A." project supplied these North Hills community statistics: median household income: $52,456.

[citation needed] 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.

[116] Main thoroughfares include Sepulveda and Roscoe boulevards; Hayvenhurst, Woodley, and Haskell avenues; Lassen, Plummer, and Nordhoff streets.

[133] 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,[134][135] and the lack of green space in the neighborhood.

[138][139] A 12 feet (3.7 m) ivy poodle living sculpture is located on a utility pole at Plummer Street and Hayvenhurst Avenue, next to Bull Creek.

The poodle was originally sculpted by North Hills resident Brian Welch in the 1980s and it quickly became a local celebrity.