Verdugo Woodlands neighbors rally against approval of ‘uncharacteristic’ residential project
A group of concerned homeowners and residents in the Verdugo Woodlands neighborhood has filed an appeal and started a petition against approval last month by the Glendale Design Review Board for a project to tear down an existing home and build a house more than three times the size on a lot on Los Encinos Avenue.
The issue is over applicant and project architect Hamlet Zohrabians’ request to demolish a one-story, 948-square-foot, single-family home with a detached two-car garage at 1849 Los Encinos Ave. and construct a two-story, 3,264-square-foot, single-family home with an attached two-car garage on the 10,140-square-foot lot.
Despite raising concerns during the public comment portion of the Design Review Board meeting over the mass and scale of the project and its modern design that several said was uncharacteristic of the neighborhood, the project was approved 4-1, with some conditions.
According to the record of decision by the board, the site planning is “appropriate” and “compatible with the predominant pattern on Los Encinos Avenue.”
Regarding mass and scale, board members pointed to a number of conditions of approval that will lower the home’s overall height and massing, including lowering the first floor plate height to 10 feet and the second floor plate height to 8 feet. There is also an option for the applicant to relocate a bedroom as a way to lower the height.
However, Meiling Pope and Jerome Gross, who live near the proposed home, filed an appeal against the project with 16 other co-appellants living along Los Encinos Avenue as well as nearby Alpha Road and Mira Vista Drive.
The appeal alleges that the Design Review Board failed its duty to adhere to portions of the Glendale Municipal Code when it approved a project that would be incompatible with the neighborhood, unreasonably impact the privacy of nearby homes and outdoor spaces as well as a failure to issue “clear and binding conditions” for the project that would help ease its overall impacts.
Pope and Gross said they are also worried about the second floor design, which they consider overbearing and “intrusive” to their own property on Alpha Road. The two also said a separate evaluation conducted on the proposed project would diminish their property value.
Project architect Zohrabians said at the meeting that the project accounts for the “unique” property lot, as it is double the size of the average lot in the neighborhood. The project does not exceed the allowed maximum floor-area-ratio, or FAR, of 0.42 as allowed in a residential zone.
An informal pushback on the project is also gaining traction. Danielle Ondarza, a next-door neighbor to the project, started a Change.org petition asking Glendale City Council to ensure the Design Review Board “preserve the character of [the Verdugo Woodlands] neighborhoods.”
Ondarza said the more than 500 signatures on the petition reflects concerns of both the residents in the neighborhood and those in the city who share similar experiences with “McMansions,” a negative term for large new or recent multi-story homes, usually in a modern style.
While Ondarza said she does not see an issue with the proposed square footage of the home, she’s worried about a contemporary design in a neighborhood that looks historic.
“I’m angry with the [Design Review Board] for not doing their job and being so careful to impose rules on existing homeowners but letting new construction just go by,” Ondarza said. “I’m normally a ‘live-and-let-live’ kind of person but the [board] is putting me in this position where I’m making an enemy of whoever moves next door … They are pitting neighbor against neighbor.”
The appeal is pending approval by city staff members, who will decide if the appellants are granted a hearing with City Council.
Twitter: @JeffLanda
