Builder Needs Neighbors’ Nod : Residents Lower the Boom on Townhouses’ Top Floor

The top should come off before the bottom goes in.

That’s the stance Studio City homeowners are taking over construction of a $4.5-million condominium project planned for their neighborhood.

Residents said Wednesday they have asked that the top floor of the proposed 3-story Laurelwood Drive townhouse development be eliminated before the city allows ground-breaking for the project on a hilly, tree-studded site.

A Los Angeles developer hopes to build a 45-foot-tall, 21-unit townhouse project atop a partially underground garage at 11843 Laurelwood Drive.

But builder Paul Moulder has been told by Los Angeles officials that he needs the endorsement of nearby residents to obtain city permission to subdivide the 62-foot-wide lot for separately owned condos.

Residents voiced unhappiness over the height of the structure last week during a meeting with Moulder. They suggested that a top-floor unit be removed from the front of the development and agreed to sit down privately to help Moulder with the redesign.

At the second meeting Tuesday night, homeowners decided that more than one top-floor unit should be removed.

“We’d like for them to remove the entire third floor,” said Katie Row, who has lived on Laurelwood for six years. “They said that would not be economically feasible for them.”

As a compromise, homeowners told Moulder they might support a partial fourth story at the rear of the project if most of the third story were eliminated.

Row said Moulder and his architect pledged to prepare revised designs that will show what a scaled-back townhouse project would look like. At the same time, she said, Moulder will calculate costs and revenue that would result from such changes.

The two sides will meet again next Tuesday night, she said.

Repeated efforts to reach Moulder for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Last week, however, he stressed that his company already has the necessary zoning to build a 3-story apartment house similar to his first condo design if it cannot obtain permission for condos.

Townhouses Preferred

He said his company, Stone & Stone, opted for a condo project because it feels townhouses will blend better with the neighborhood than would apartments.

Renee Weitzer, land-use deputy for Councilman Joel Wachs, whose district includes the area, said her office will support a zoning variance that would allow a partial rear fourth story on the project if that is what the neighborhood wants.

“He’s going back to the drawing board,” Weitzer said Wednesday of Moulder. “I told him even before the homeowners did that his original design was too bulky and too high, and we could not accept it.”

She said the city will demand that the height of the condos not exceed the height of trees on adjoining properties. If excavation work for the underground garage kills any of the adjoining trees, Moulder will be required to replace them with trees that are the same height, Weitzer said.

“Hopefully they can step the buildings back and come up with something better,” she said.