His Dream House Is Her Nightmare

I never thought that it would happen to my house. I’ve seen other homes around Los Angeles suddenly dwarfed, overwhelmed and cast in the shade by huge houses replacing the smaller ones that used to sit next to them. But there’s a prohibition against two-story houses on our canyon street. My husband and I were safe. Other people may have lost the privacy of their back yards, the sun necessary to grow the gardens they’ve enjoyed and the views they’ve relished for years, but not us. It couldn’t happen here.

When our new neighbor described his modest remodeling plan after buying the house next to us, we said fine. My shock two weeks ago on seeing a foundation jutting out from the main house can hardly be put into words. The foundation is big enough to underlie something that could be fairly described as a wing, and it stretches across his yard near our fence, blocking our view down the tree-filled canyon. Where we once saw nothing but trees and no structures, we would now be seeing little but structures.

Our family room, kitchen and back yard have been greatly enhanced by our woodsy view for 25 years. Without it, our home wouldn’t be our home.

When we complained, our neighbor said it couldn’t be helped now because any change in plans would require him to go through the permit process again and would greatly delay his move-in date. He didn’t say he needed the room. His children are grown and gone. He didn’t say he was attached to the room. He just said it was too late. Before he came over with his plans and told us this, we learned from another source that he planned to add still another structure next to the family-room wing. Our neighbor didn’t mention this second structure. We had to ask. Yes, it was too late for him to do anything about that one, too. Its plans weren’t filed but somehow it was too late.

This, I find, is the usual story. All too often a homeowner doesn’t know what’s going on next to him, or sometimes that anything at all is going on, until he sees foundations being dug. Then he has to find the builder and ask to see the plans. Most people don’t do this right away because it doesn’t occur to them that they could be adversely affected by the new structure. They may think that a one-story house is going up just like their own and everyone else’s on the block. They may think, as we did, that the owners were building a house only slightly larger than the old one.

In Los Angeles, the unhappy victim of the tear-down and over-build syndrome finds that the city building code allows just about any size and shape of private-home construction as long as it doesn’t exceed three stories or 45 feet. The victim can check to see if there are covenants, codes and restrictions in his neighborhood that prohibit a planned building, but even if there are, they often don’t help. The canny builder knows that if he can get a foundation poured and a little framing up, he probably has it made.

Besides the fact that most victims simply don’t have the resources or stomach to take a builder to court in the event he has violated any codes or restrictions, the builder knows that if he does wind up there, judges are inclined to let a project that’s under way continue. The builder pleads that he has invested too much time and money to stop now; the victim should have complained earlier.

Thus the Catch-22 circle is closed. The builder has kept everything about his plans as quiet as possible, then pleads hardship when the victim finally finds out what’s happening and complains.

This awful game has gone on long enough. The city of Los Angeles should radically down-zone. A ratio of floor area to lot size should be established. A rule that building height cannot exceed the average height of surrounding houses should be adopted. Along with these changes could go a more liberal use of variances. Thus, a builder could apply for a variance to the floor ratio and/or height restriction. The variance would be granted if he showed that the neighbors who are affected approve. If, as builders claim, larger homes upgrade a neighborhood and increase property values, they ought to be able to sell this claim to the neighbors and win approval for their plans.

If these changes in zoning laws were made, no builder or prospective owner/remodeler would buy a lot to develop or a house to remodel without first going to the neighbors to find out if the larger house they wanted to build met with the neighbors’ approval.

For some of us it is too late. We’ll just have to accept our loss or fight it out in the courts. It’s time the city came to the rescue of the rest.