A former “Simpsons” producer says he was forced to demolish his LA home’s beloved treehouse over the weekend because of city bureaucracy and a pesky neighbor — and now he wants out of the Golden State.
Three-time Emmy winner Rick Polizzi told The Post he spent eight years and $50,000 in attempts to bring his family’s eccentric arboreal dwelling up to code. But after being thwarted at every turn, he threw in the towel, had it removed Saturday — and is ready to relocate because of the Kafkaesque nightmare.
“After all this treehouse stuff, I’m just totally burned out on the city, and politics,” he said, adding that he’s likely to sell his Sherman Oaks home and return to his hometown of New Orleans.
“I’m just getting tired of the rat race here,” Polizzi said. “The rats are winning, so I want to get out.”
The former producer, who worked on “The Simpsons” for 16 years, waved the white flag over the weekend, bringing in crews to tear down the cartoon-inspired treehouse in his front yard to avoid a criminal court appearance Wednesday after countless attempts at compliance.
Polizzi and “Simpsons” producer Michael Mahan built the eye-catching four-story structure for Polizzi’s two daughters in 2001. The treehouse was equipped with a clubhouse, tiki bar and crow’s nest mountain lookout and sat wedged between three sturdy gum trees.
“This town was built on creativity and the entertainment industry, so you would think they would embrace things like this,” Polizzi said.
But after 24 years standing, the creative and architectural feat now resides in a local landfill.
Polizzi’s sordid ordeal with the city started in 2017, when a neighbor in his leafy, San-Fernando valley suburb complained about crowds of spectators at his annual “Boney Island” Halloween light and decoration display incorporating the treehouse.
The complaint yielded a code-enforcement violation against Polizzi that said he lacked the proper permits for the treehouse.
Polizzi’s lawyer, Paige Gosney, told The Post that despite efforts to address the complaint with the city, the failure to resolve the violation notice led to a criminal misdemeanor charge against Polizzi in 2020.
Polizzi eventually relocated his Halloween haunt to a nearby park and later to the city’s Natural History Museum as a fundraiser. But the City of Angels continued its crusade against his treehouse, Gosney said.
The city had put the tree dwelling in legal No Man’s Land because it was stumped over whether to treat it as a residential or commercial structure, even though it was neither, Gosney told The Post.
The situation then became a case of City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office saying it could not dismiss the criminal charge against Polizzi without action from LA’s Department of Building Safety, or LADBS, the lawyer said. And LADBS would not clear the structure because of the pending criminal matter, Gosney said.
“It’s like a snake eating itself,” Gosney said of the convoluted process. “For four years, we’ve tried to work with the Building and Safety Department to understand what they needed from us to legalize the structure, but every time the Polizzis would go to the city to meet with staff, they’d be met with no answers.”
Over the years, LADBS has meanwhile requested soil testing to assess the stability of the treehouse, structural designs, plans for potential Americans with Disabilities Act modifications if deemed a commercial property, and more, Gosney said.
“It’s a shame that all this creativity is being squashed the same way they’re forcing productions out of here,” Polizzi said, referring to the exodus of filming projects from Hollywood this year in favor of New York, New Jersey and Georgia and countries outside the US.
But the ex-animation producer said he’s not surprised Hollywood is no longer the premiere hub for creativity and cinema.
“Boy, California isn’t business friendly — the regulation, the paperwork, the taxes,” Polizzi said. “I understand why productions are leaving town, but it’s going to affect all the citizens who came here for a dream of going into the entertainment industry, and it’s just not here anymore.”
A rep for City Attorney Soto declined to comment to The Post on pending litigation, and a rep at LADBS did not return a request for comment. Polizzi’s neighbor did not respond to a Post query, either.
“It’s a joke,” Polizzi said.
“The city said they were going to come after me for their court fees, and it was a bully tactic,” he said. “I’m not going to spend another $20,000 to $30,000 going to court when there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to keep it. I had to stop the bleeding.”
Polizzi said he hopes California wildfire victims won’t have to endure the red tape and bureaucracy at LADBS that he’s dealt with.
“The city has been saying they’ll expedite the permitting process so people can start building again and make it a one-stop shop” to help fire victims, he said.
“But for almost two years, I could not get the department to answer questions about a treehouse.
“If the fire victims have to go through one tenth of what we dealt with, they’re going to be in a world of trouble, so I hope the city can get it together, because fire victims have been through enough,” Polizzi said.