27-Inch Discrepancy to Bring Down House

Environmental-minded Agoura Hills officials figure that if you give developers an inch, they’ll take a mile.

So the City Council saw miles of trouble ahead when a developer built a house 27 inches too close to the street in one of the town’s most picturesque neighborhoods.

Council members decided Tuesday night that builder Francis Allen will have to tear down his 1,638-square-foot modular house unless he moves it further back on its lot.

Allen said the $150,000 home can’t be moved, however, because there is a rocky cliff at its back steps.

The dispute was unprecedented, even for Agoura Hills, whose council is described as the “Most Fanatic” in Southern California in the current issue of Los Angeles magazine. The magazine cited a “rash of building regulations” and “rigorous environmental concern” in the city, which has banned such things as neon signs, curb-side recreational vehicle parking and street vendors.

Work Halted in June

Allen’s offense was violating the city’s 20-foot setback requirement for garages.

Officials ordered a halt to Allen’s construction last month after they discovered that a corner of the concrete foundation to his unfinished garage was within 17 1/2 feet of Lewis Road.

The city had ordered a survey of Allen’s site after other homeowners in the Indian Hills neighborhood complained about construction on the lot, which is hemmed in between a rocky outcropping and a deep ravine near a 47-year-old Indian statue that is an Agoura landmark.

Waiver Sought

Allen requested a routine setback waiver from the city after that. His request prompted Tuesday’s council hearing and a new round of homeowner complaints.

Residents charged that Allen’s boxy house crowds the lot and that the prefabricated structure looks out of place in their hilly, 33-house neighborhood where homes are mostly large, stucco-sided and tile-roofed.

“There’s a greater principle here than a couple of feet,” said city Planning Commissioner Chris Calvert, who lives in the neighborhood. “What’s at stake here are the higher standards we became a city for.”

Allen, who lives in Tarzana, asked that he be allowed to finish the house and sell it because Los Angeles County building inspectors, who work under contract for Agoura Hills, issued a building permit for it. Although it’s a modular house, he said, it could not be moved without damage even if there were room.

Council members were equally unmoved. Besides refusing to issue a setback waiver, they refused to allow Allen to shorten his garage to fit the site.

Councilman Ernest Dynda said a waiver would be a bad precedent for the city. “Mr. Allen knew setbacks were critical. There’s definite negligence on his part,” Dynda said.

May Abandon Site

“I don’t find it logical not to know where your boundaries are,” Councilwoman Darlene McBane said.

Councilman Jack W. Koenig urged adoption of a new ordinance that would make lot surveys mandatory for all future homes in the 3 1/2-year-old, 8-square-mile city.

After the 3-1 Agoura Hills council vote rejecting his application for a waiver, Allen talked of abandoning his partly built house and leaving it “rotting up there” unless a compromise with the city can be found.

But jubilant area homeowners said they aren’t worried.

“I don’t think the city will allow that,” said Nick Angelos, who lives next to Allen’s building site. “The city will go after him. We wouldn’t allow something like that to remain.”