NEIGHBORHOODS-Residents of an historic neighborhood designated as North Beverly Grove have submitted petitions, documentation and a formal request to Councilman Paul Koretz for a Residential Floor Area District (RFA) to end the building of oversized and out-of-character single-family dwellings.
Dr. Jeff Marsh, a physician, is the chair of The Committee to End Mansionization of North Beverly Grove, an area bordered by La Cienega in the west, Rosewood/Melrose in the north, Crescent Heights in the East and Third Street in the south. The proposed RFA for the neighborhood would essentially be a duplication of Ordinance No. 182754 recently enacted for the nearby Beverly Grove area.
“We are dedicated to protecting our neighborhood from out of control building and preserving our neighbors’ right to privacy, light, and a sense of community,” said Marsh. “These monolithic, massive structures are like a virus, popping up with total disregard for their neighbors and the neighborhood. They are completely out of proportion to the lot sizes and the neighboring homes. The detrimental nature of McMansions has been officially acknowledged by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission.”
“The desire to end this detested style of building is overwhelming among our residents who want to preserve the charming quality of our area,” said Clark Carlton, a writer and real estate professional, who is vice-chair of the committee. “We are encouraged by our neighbors’ victory to end mansionization in Beverly Grove, but our situation has become more urgent since the passage of the ordinance for the area south of us. The builders know that a movement is under way to stop the McMansions. They are racing to destroy and replace as many of the original 1920s homes as they can here. Once we stop the McMansions in this area, the developers will move to some other part of the city where residents haven’t organized.”
Marsh and Carlton have connected with other Los Angeles homeowners associations that are fighting mansionization through their Facebook page, No More McMansions in Los Angeles. The page includes a step-by-step guide on how to obtain an RFA, as well as a link to an on-line petition that demands amendments to eliminate loopholes in the Baseline Mansionization Ordinance (BMO), the original ordinance passed in 2008 whose purpose was to end the building of oversized houses.
“While we fight for our own RFA, we are also urging the City Council to move quickly to amend the BMO. This would end the mansionization problem for all of Los Angeles right away,” said Marsh. “This ordinance, as written, has done nothing to protect our neighborhoods. Most of the McMansions in Los Angeles have been legally permitted and constructed since the BMO was passed in 2008, proof that it lacks any teeth and does not meet the spirit of its intentions. It forces neighborhoods to request localized zoning regulations, which is a very inefficient way of dealing with a citywide problem. Making certain changes to the BMO would address this problem in a timely way without taking valuable resources from an already strained city government.”
Marsh and Carlton presented their documents to Joan Pelico, Chief of Staff for Councilman Paul Koretz and to Shawn Bayliss, the Council Office’s Director of Planning and Land Use Deputy on December 10, 2013 at Paul Koretz’s City Hall office. Ms. Pelico and Mr. Bayliss accepted the petitions as evidence that a clear majority of residents in the area are in support of the RFA. Bayliss said no further surveys would be conducted regarding the issue.
(Mike Dobson lives in the North Beverly Grove neighborhood. He can be reached at [email protected] with any questions about mansionization issues.)
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CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 2
Pub: Jan 7, 2014