"Big and ugly" is how Brentwood Community Council member Carolyn Jordan described the new power poles, according to Brentwood News. She also said Brentwood needs them. LADWP presented its plan at the council's June meeting: three 70-foot poles, each topped with a transformer rack, at three Brentwood locations. Brentwood News reported that the room's reaction was "mixed but largely resigned."
Most of the attention on Sunset Boulevard this month went to a water leak. That repair took four days. The pole project will last longer, and LADWP's reasons for it start inside Brentwood's own homes.
Four Days on Sunset
On the afternoon of Friday, October 9, LADWP found a leak on Sunset Boulevard between Allenford Avenue and Mandeville Canyon Road. The Palisadian-Post later reported that the source was an air-vacuum valve connected to the Westgate Trunk Line. According to the utility's October 10 notice, that line serves the westside part of LADWP's water service area, including Pacific Palisades. Crews closed all eastbound lanes. LADWP also closed Temescal Canyon Trail so it could run pumps on a backup drinking-water pipe recently installed there.
By the third day of restrictions, Brentwood News reported that one westbound lane was closed along with all eastbound lanes, and that LADWP had told 29 homes to expect water shutoffs of six to eight hours. Palisades residents were asked to cut back between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. by turning off sprinklers and automatic pool refills, keeping showers under five minutes, and holding dishwashers and washing machines until later.
The repair was finished on the evening of Tuesday, October 13. The Palisadian-Post reported that traffic was moving in both directions again between Allenford and Mandeville Canyon and that the conservation request had ended. The Post also reported that LADWP had not said what caused the valve to fail or how much water was lost. In a statement the Post quoted, LADWP chief operating officer Anselmo Collins said, "Our teams developed and tested innovative operational supply plans to facilitate repairs."
That stretch of Sunset is about to see crews again. One of the three transformer poles is planned for Sunset between San Remo Drive and Allenford Avenue, so the leak site and the pole site both run up to Allenford.
Three Corners on Three Schedules
The LADWP project page calls the equipment "pole-top transformer racks." Their job is to ease strain on the distribution system for neighborhoods supplied by Distributing Station 66, which sits at San Vicente Boulevard and Gretna Green Way. Each site has its own target date, and two of them come with conditions.
| Pole | Location | Nearby | LADWP's listed target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pole Top 199 | San Vicente Blvd. and S. Gretna Green Way | Across from Brentwood Science Magnet, near DS-66 | Early August 2026 |
| Pole Top 203 | Sunset Blvd. between San Remo Dr. and Allenford Ave. | The Sunset stretch next to the October leak | August 2026, pending equipment availability |
| Pole Top 202 | Gorham Ave. and S. Barrington Ave. | Behind the Starbucks | Early fall, pending redesign |
Those dates are targets, not completion dates. The page has not been updated to show which poles are already standing. Installing the poles is only Phase 1. Phase 2 covers the circuit and line work, and its schedule is listed as "TBD." Overall, LADWP expects construction from August 2026 through January 2027, with the equipment brought into service between January and April 2027.
An earlier timeline is still circulating. Council District 11's schedule, as reported in June by Brentwood News and in July by Brentwood Voice, had work starting in July 2026, continuing on and off through March 2027, and the equipment running by April 2027. The two versions start and end construction on different dates, but both put the finish in April 2027.
Why Brentwood Needs More Capacity
LADWP has given two local reasons, both reported by Brentwood News. Brentwood has a higher-than-average rate of electric vehicle ownership, and its homes keep getting bigger, a trend often called "mansionization" that draws more power per household. Both changes are happening house by house, in garages and in new construction. The grid serving them was built for a smaller neighborhood.
The problem is not new. LADWP added a circuit at DS-66 after a run of outages in 2013 and 2014, and Brentwood News described the poles as "simply the latest chapter" in that effort. At the June meeting, Brentwood News reported, several residents described going days without electricity, and a DWP spokesperson said the grid is under the most strain during heat waves, which is exactly when losing air conditioning hurts most.
Six weeks after that meeting came a heat-wave outage. NBC Los Angeles reported that an underground circuit failed on Friday, July 31, and initially cut power to 665 customers in parts of Brentwood and the Hollywood Hills. Some residents reported more than 17 hours without power. Forty homes were still dark at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, and power was fully restored by 3:30 p.m. LADWP has not described that failure as part of the reason for the pole project. LADWP describes the project's purpose in general terms: fewer and shorter outages, especially during high demand.
Not everyone at the June meeting saw the poles as the long-term answer. Council member Pamela Brown suggested that wider use of solar in Brentwood could ease the load over time. According to Brentwood News, the DWP spokesperson didn't disagree but cautioned that solar would not spread fast enough to make the poles unnecessary.
What the Palisades Precedent Says About Permanence
Brentwood's poles have a precedent nearby. As Brentwood News recounted, in 2016 LADWP put up two temporary pole-top distributing stations in Pacific Palisades, at Sunset and Temescal Canyon Road and at Sunset and Marquez Avenue. A property owner near the Marquez site appealed to the California Coastal Commission, arguing that ground-mounted transformers would be less visually intrusive. The Commission denied the appeal.
That appeal ended with the poles in place. For the three Brentwood corners, LADWP says the poles will be non-combustible metal built to the same codes as the rest of the city's system, and that once installed they will make "minimal operational sound." Brentwood News also pointed out that these are not high-voltage lattice towers. They are distribution equipment: a pole with a platform holding transformers and cross arms, doing the job a ground-level substation would otherwise do.
What the Work Means Block by Block
LADWP's posted rules are the same at all three sites. Crews work Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with occasional Saturdays. Expect noise from heavy equipment, dust, and temporary lane and sidewalk closures managed with cones, digital message boards, flaggers, barriers and detours. LADWP says any planned power outage will be announced in advance.
How much you notice depends on where you are. The San Vicente work sits across from Brentwood Science Magnet, near the existing DS-66 station. Behind the Starbucks at Gorham and Barrington is the site still waiting on a redesign. Drivers who just finished detouring around the valve repair on Sunset may see flaggers again a short distance away. After the poles are up, Phase 2 brings circuit and line work on a schedule LADWP has not yet set.
To follow the project yourself:
- LADWP community liaison: Leah McKenzie, 213-367-5162, [email protected]
- Project page: the Brentwood Pole-Top Transformer Racks Project page lists sites, phases and hours
- Incident updates: LADWP News posted both the October leak notice and the repair-complete notice
- Community meetings: the Brentwood Community Council is where LADWP first presented the plan, and it met again on October 14
If you own a home near San Vicente and Gretna Green, Gorham and Barrington, or the Sunset stretch by Allenford, and you are planning a sale, a renovation or a listing date in the months before April 2027, Pence Hathorn Silver can help you plan around the construction calendar on your block. Schedule a Free Consultation, and we will go over the timing with you.
