Architects’ Designs Go on Trial : Glendale Review Panel Weeds Out Projects It Finds Aesthetically Unfit
Like an accused waiting for the verdict in his trial, the architect stood on a balcony in the Glendale Municipal Services Building, shifting impatiently from foot to foot. Inside, a panel of critics peered at his drawings for a proposed five-unit apartment building planned on West 5th Street.
They did not like what they saw.
“Motel 6, San Juan Capistrano,” said one of the judges with a glare in his eye. “Flat walls. No change of plane. Nothing.”
“This is exactly why this board was created,” commented another member of the design review panel formed by the Glendale City Council three months ago to halt construction of what one council member described as “three-story, walk-up boxes.”
The architect was finally summoned into the room and handed a written list of criticisms. “This has so much wrong with it, we just quit writing,” a panelist said. Glumly, the designer rolled up the paper and left without comment, presumably headed back to the drawing board.
Not all the architects and hopeful developers called into the room react as quietly. Once, an irate architect’s verbal attack against members of the panel became so abusive that the panel had to recess until tempers cooled. Another time, a developer whose plans had been rejected continued to berate panel members until he was escorted out by the planning staff.
Angry or sedate, the review is a scene that has been repeated every Wednesday afternoon since March 19 in Room 106, a small, stark cubicle tucked in a corner of the municipal building, itself a white, modernistic structure perched on stilts. For five to six hours each week, a panel of architects, real estate developers and design experts scrutinize architectural and landscaping plans for hundreds of apartment buildings and commercial projects proposed in the city.
Appointed by the council to their unpaid positions, the 10 members are split into two groups that meet on alternating weeks.
They have their work cut out for them. About 300 proposed projects have been submitted to the review boards, which have ruled on about 150 of them. Of those, almost two-thirds were rejected and sent back for modifications.
Now four to five weeks behind schedule, even though the law creating them requires that the design review process be completed within 14 days, the boards have been working overtime to reduce the backlog, Planning Director Gerald Jamriska said.
The delays anger developers and architects. They also complain that the city’s rules are vague. The guidelines specify that designs for each project provide “changes in material, height, projections in the vertical or horizontal plane or similar facade changes.” Guidelines also call for elimination of “the ugly, the garish, the inharmonious, the monotonous and the hazardous.”
Vic Glandian, co-owner of G. B. Architects & Engineers, which specializes in apartment design in Glendale, called the guidelines “very primitive.”
“Architects are losing the freedom of concept because we are trying to please members of the panel,” he complained.
He suggested that, instead of the review board, the city hire two or three architects who could give specific advice to developers.
But City Council members were adamantly opposed to allowing city staff members to make the final decision on acceptable architectural designs, saying that such power could become dictatorial.
An architect can appeal the design panels’ rejection of plans to the City Council, but none has yet done so.
Patrick Chiu, a Baldwin Park architect who has designed apartment buildings for cities throughout the San Gabriel Valley, as well as Glendale, said most cities adopt guidelines recommending a certain style of architecture, such as Spanish or Mediterranean design.
“Most cities tell us ahead of time what they would like to see,” said Chiu, who has had several projects rejected by the review panels.
“Then we know exactly what expectations they have and design accordingly,” he said. “But Glendale has no idea what it wants, no particular style. Even the city planners do not know exactly what these people want.”
However, Charles Walton, a Glendale architect and chairman of one of the panels, said the guidelines are purposely vague in order to encourage creativity and a variety of design. But he concedes that it has taken time for the architectural community to understand the city’s goals.
“I think now that it is working,” Walton said, “that, certainly, the architecture is improving. We are seeing better projects today than we did two months ago.”
And some architects and developers say they welcome the new rules. Architect Hovik I. Aghaian of Glendale said, “It’s nice to finally have an architectural review board in the city. But it would have been better if we had had it three years ago. There are so many ugly buildings in town now.”
The new rules were adopted as an emergency ordinance by the City Council, requiring a design review of all proposed apartments, commercial and industrial buildings before a permit is issued. The city for some time has reviewed architectural plans for condominiums, and stringent design rules have been applied to construction in the downtown redevelopment project. As always, most single-family homes are exempt from design review.
But no review had been required for apartment buildings, which began going up in record numbers all over the city two years ago--to a chorus of complaints about their appearance. “Speckled boxes with windows punched out” is how Jamriska described the buildings.
Mayor Larry Zarian, a developer, has repeatedly complained about the quality of apartment construction.
“Every time I drive down Wilson,” he told council members recently, referring to one of the streets that has had extensive apartment development, “I feel like driving into a couple of buildings.”
The review board concept gained support in the last few months because the city had been besieged with plans by developers to erect quick, inexpensive apartment buildings.
Requests for 5,000 Units
Planning Director Jamriska said that, historically, about 3,000 new apartment units are built in the city during a 10-year period. But, since October, 1984, requests to build more than 5,000 apartment units have been filed. The boom was spurred by lower interest rates and a scramble among developers to beat the April 24 deadline when more restrictive zoning rules went into effect.
About 200 applications for building permits were filed in the last two days before the deadline, Jamriska said, allowing those builders to follow the old zoning and building rules. Very few applications have been filed for building permits under the new zoning regulations, he added.
The review boards were created for a one-year period, after which the City Council will decide if it wants to continue the program. A spokesman for the American Institute of Architects said many cities for years have had design review panels, most often to deal with preserving historic areas and with downtown redevelopment projects. But he said the creation of review panels for aesthetic reasons alone “seems to be a new trend around the country.”
He took no position on Glendale’s review program.
The nationally circulated Engineering News-Record reported the creation of the Glendale design panels in its March 27 edition with the headline: “City Takes on Ticky Tacky.” The story reported that the ordinance in Glendale “goes beyond the design review ordinances in many California cities that apply primarily to urban redevelopment projects.”
Glendale’s design panels are unique in the city. Unlike other city commissions that meet openly, the design review panels exclude applicants--although other members of the public can attend--from listening to their deliberations.
Applicants must wait in an adjoining hearing room or, if the room is in use, as it often is, on the balcony outside. James Glaser, a senior planner, said the reason is simply logistics.
Lack of Room Cited
“We just don’t have room for 50 or 60 developers to crowd in,” he said, adding that the jury needs time to privately study complicated blueprints.
Panel members move around the room, studying drawings pinned to the bulletin boards by staff members in the order in which they were received. The strong and weak points of each design are discussed and noted on a pre-printed form. The juries generally reach a consensus on a plan before the architect or developer is called into the room.
Sig Raulinaitis, a Glendale contractor whose plans for a carport at a Kenneth Road auto repair shop were recently rejected because of its boxy appearance, said he will drop the project rather than try to meet city requirements. When told that his proposed carport would be “an eyesore in the community,” Raulinaitis responded sharply, saying, “The buildings next to it certainly are not the Taj Mahal.”
The effect the review board has on planned buildings is often dramatic. For instance, architectural drawings for a proposed eight-unit apartment building on West Lexington Drive originally depicted a flat-sided building with sliding glass doors and plain windows facing the street.
After the review panel rejected the plans, the architect came back with a new concept, featuring Spanish-style tile canopies over windows, wrought-iron balconies in front of doors and chimneys that break up the wall and roof lines of the building.
Even though developers say the biggest problem with the new design guidelines is delays in getting building permits, members of the design review boards say many of the delays are caused by architects submitting poor designs.
Panel members said many plans have been resubmitted two or three times with little or no change in design. Because the panels have spent much of their time reviewing the same plans, they have been unable to get to other new projects.
As a result, the panels last month adopted procedural changes that bump projects to the bottom of the design review list after they have been rejected twice.
Almost 50 architects and design experts volunteered to serve on the panels when they were first created, indicating to city officials that the program has widespread support. Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg said, “The quality of people who applied to serve on the boards was remarkable. There were so many who felt we really needed this.”
Bremberg also said she has heard mixed response from the development community. “The ones who were building cracker-box walk-ups are madder than heck,” she said. “But the ones with good plans are pleased as punch.”
