Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Calif.: A Battle for the High Ground
From the Los Angeles Times
A Battle for the High Ground
In the hills of northeast L.A., debate flares over property rights and preserving open space.
By Jim Newton
Times Staff Writer
March 7, 2006
The hills north and east of downtown Los Angeles are a mishmash of small homes, narrow streets, hidden valleys and long views. A few have streetlights; others go dark at night, quiet swatches of countryside less than 10 miles from City Hall. Some of the city's last big undeveloped parcels — places like Flat-Top, Mt. Olympus, Rose Hill, Paradise Hill — frame the horizon.
Now those inviting green spaces have become the staging ground in a bitter, protracted dispute, with distinct class and racial overtones, that is a microcosm of the exploding development struggles across Los Angeles.
Each side has its devoted advocates. There is Clare Marter Kenyon, a librarian with a soft British accent and a keen determination to protect plants and wildlife from encroaching development; when she drives around El Sereno, she sees the stumps of felled California black walnuts and winces. There is James Rojas, an urban planner who lives downtown but covets the relief of the open spaces and is closely allied with Kenyon. "West L.A.," he said, "has their ocean. We have our hillsides." And there is Tomas Osinski, a Polish emigre and architect with a critical eye, an adamant belief in the rights of property owners and an intolerance for government hypocrisy.
The specifics of their fight are the hillside and building regulations of northeast Los Angeles. Some want emergency rules to slow development while the neighborhoods devise long-term guidelines for growth. Others contend those proposed rules represent a vast overreaction and threaten to rob homeowners of their investments for no good reason.
[snipped]
When he learned of the interim control ordinance, Osinski was infuriated by its sweep, by its strict limits on floor space and grading, by the proliferation of well-intentioned but clunky design rules. Those rules, he says, discourage innovative architecture and substitute the aesthetic preferences of City Hall politicians and bureaucrats for homeowners who invest in their land and property. City rules regulate retaining walls, setbacks and building height in ways that discourage some excesses but also limit creative design, he noted. Height limits, for instance, regulate the overall distance between the peak and foot of a home. That prevents the construction of buildings that block neighbors' views but
also discourages modest terracing by limiting how far down a hillside a home may extend.
"We are mandated to design ugly buildings," he said.
A Battle for the High Ground
In the hills of northeast L.A., debate flares over property rights and preserving open space.
By Jim Newton
Times Staff Writer
March 7, 2006
The hills north and east of downtown Los Angeles are a mishmash of small homes, narrow streets, hidden valleys and long views. A few have streetlights; others go dark at night, quiet swatches of countryside less than 10 miles from City Hall. Some of the city's last big undeveloped parcels — places like Flat-Top, Mt. Olympus, Rose Hill, Paradise Hill — frame the horizon.
Now those inviting green spaces have become the staging ground in a bitter, protracted dispute, with distinct class and racial overtones, that is a microcosm of the exploding development struggles across Los Angeles.
Each side has its devoted advocates. There is Clare Marter Kenyon, a librarian with a soft British accent and a keen determination to protect plants and wildlife from encroaching development; when she drives around El Sereno, she sees the stumps of felled California black walnuts and winces. There is James Rojas, an urban planner who lives downtown but covets the relief of the open spaces and is closely allied with Kenyon. "West L.A.," he said, "has their ocean. We have our hillsides." And there is Tomas Osinski, a Polish emigre and architect with a critical eye, an adamant belief in the rights of property owners and an intolerance for government hypocrisy.
The specifics of their fight are the hillside and building regulations of northeast Los Angeles. Some want emergency rules to slow development while the neighborhoods devise long-term guidelines for growth. Others contend those proposed rules represent a vast overreaction and threaten to rob homeowners of their investments for no good reason.
[snipped]
When he learned of the interim control ordinance, Osinski was infuriated by its sweep, by its strict limits on floor space and grading, by the proliferation of well-intentioned but clunky design rules. Those rules, he says, discourage innovative architecture and substitute the aesthetic preferences of City Hall politicians and bureaucrats for homeowners who invest in their land and property. City rules regulate retaining walls, setbacks and building height in ways that discourage some excesses but also limit creative design, he noted. Height limits, for instance, regulate the overall distance between the peak and foot of a home. That prevents the construction of buildings that block neighbors' views but
also discourages modest terracing by limiting how far down a hillside a home may extend.
"We are mandated to design ugly buildings," he said.
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