General Plan Update - City of Inglewood

5.3 Topography and Hillsides
5.3 TOPOGRAPHY AND HILLSIDES
This section describes the existing topography, slope, and elevation of the City.
Information for this section was obtained from the 1995 Safety Element of the General
Plan.
• Existing Conditions
The City of Inglewood is comprised of three main topographical terrains: the Baldwin
Hills located north of Centinela Creek, the southern Morningside Park area known as the
Rosecrans Hills, and the Inglewood-Torrance coastal plain.
The Baldwin Hills represent the highest and steepest terrain conditions within the City.
Slopes within the hills are generally no steeper than 20 percent. Figure 5.3-1 identifies the
topography and slope characteristics of the City. The sides of the steeper drainages rarely
exceed a slope of 33 percent. The Rosecrans Hills, along with the Baldwin Hills, are part
of the Newport-Inglewood uplift, a belt of discontinuous low hills that extend from the
Santa Monica mountains southeastward across the Los Angeles Basin to Newport Beach.
The Inglewood-Torrance plain is nearly flat with a gentle slope to the southwest of 50 to
75 feet per mile. This plain merges with the El Segundo sand hills along the coast west of
the City.
As shown in Table 5.3-1, approximately 93 percent of the City (approximately
5,396.3 acres) has a slope gradient between approximately zero and five degrees. This
area, located throughout the majority of the City, is considered to be easily developed.
Table 5.3-1
SOURCE:
Percent of City Land within Specified Slope Gradients
Slope Acres Percent
0–5 5,396.3 92.6
6–10 386.7 6.6
11–15 38.0 0.65
16–20 3.6 0.06
Total 5,824.7 100.0
City of Inglewood, 2006. GIS data. April
Slope gradient in the City increases along the Rosecrans Hills, which run northwest to
southeast in the eastern portion of the City. In the northern portion of the City, slope
gradient increases in the Baldwin Hills area by as much as 15-20 percent. All of the
approximately 3.6 percent of the City with a gradient of greater than 16 percent is within
the Rosecrans and Baldwin Hills areas.
Because a relatively small portion of the City has a gradient greater than 16 percent
(approximately 3.6), the City does not currently have regulations designed to protect
properties from slope failure and other potential hazards.
City of Inglewood General Plan Update Technical Background Report
5.3-1