Last Tuesday night, the City Council voted 3-2 to allow a new mansion in a quaint and quiet Verdugo Woodlands neighborhood. Our neighborhoods are doomed until we can get some new faces on the City Council.
The project was an "addition" to an 1800 sq. foot ranch style house in a pleasant neighborhood full of similar 1-story ranch houses. The average size house in the area is about 1800 sq. feet but this owner is going to more than DOUBLE the size of the house, and, to add insult to injury, it is going to be a 2-story Mediterranean style monstrosity .
The major problem with this decision is that what was at stake was the principle of whether or not "neighborhood compatibility" trumps building codes when the DRB decides whether to allow a project. The DRB wrestled with the idea that compatibility was importent, but how can they turn things down that meet all the codes without variances or CUPs?
Sadly, the City Council came down squarely on the side of the builders who want to max out every project and to hell with the neighborhoods. This is another in a series of pro-builder precedents that are going to be very bad for Glendale - but the City Council and City Staff either don't care about the quality of life in Glendale or they are too stupid to see how their bad decisions will affect Glendale's future.
DIRTY TRICKS DEPARTMENT - More to be astonished about!
The owner of the property took a run at this project first with a 3400 sq. foot house. The DRB rejected it, saying it was too large, and to scale it down and make it less massive.
What did they do? They changed architects, got Big Time Developer Rodney Kahn involved, hired Sheldon Baker as their attorney, and with all the gall in the world, came back in as a new project so the old DRB decision could be ignored, and brought in a 3900 sq. ft. house! This meant that when they were told to scale it down, they lopped off a couple of hundred square feet and ended up with an approval (by 2-1 vote) for a house which was LARGER than the one they were originally denied. Major bucks involved here, and the major principle involved was to KILL the requirement for a project to be compatible with the neighborhood - as long as a project meets code, compatibility isn't important.
The Planning Director and staff should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this sort of thing to happen, and for stacking the DRB appeals board with pro-developer DRB members.
YOUSEFIAN & NAJARIAN DO THE RIGHT THING
Bob Yousefian and Ara Najarian both voted against the project, citing the fact that they felt compatibility was very important and that this project just doesn't fit in with the neighborhod. Yousefian was particularly annoyed by the dirty trick approach to the second application, and the fact that the Planning Department staff violated the rules when they left dissenting DRB members off the appeals panel when the neighbor appealed the DRB decision.
WEAVER, MANOUKIAN and QUINTERO SIDE WITH LARGE DEVELOPER KAHN
The other three were truly weasels - they were totally unconcerned about compatibility, they seemed eager to punish the neighbor for daring to worry about their view, and Weaver was particularly pissy and obnoxious. He even argued with the City Attorney a couple of times, kept interrupting Yousefian, and in what could only be seen as bias and prejudice against the appellants, he tried to undermine the appellant's case from the beginning. He wanted to prohibit the appellant from showing a short video (Yousefian argued for it), he limited speakers to 2 minutes, and even gave Rodney Kahn extra time at the end to rebut the appellant's attorney, which the City Attorney found unusual. Normally the appellant gets the last word - but not when the Mayor has been obviously bought by big developers like Kahn, anti-homeowner realtors like Rick Barnes and heavy hitters like Sheldon Baker.
It was a particularly sad night because for the first time this year that I can remember, Frank Quintero sold out. He just stated that he thought the house was compatible and that was that.
Come on Frank, a 2 story Mediterranean style house twice the size of every other house in the middle of a neighborhood of single story ranch-style houses?? That's compatible?? Are you blind or just bought?
These hypocrites are probably going to try to pretend to be concerned about how to define compatibility and make some noise about "tightening up the DRB guidelines" the same way they blathered on about "tightening up the Hillside Ordinance" after blowing it off all together and letting people build on terribly substandard lots.
I think Glendale Alliance can do some recruiting in the Verdugo Woodlands area now - this case is another example of the City Council ignoring the many neighbors who wanted to preserve the character of their neighborhood.
