Monrovia Lets Hill Tract Keep ‘Mystery’ Zoning

The City Council has voted unanimously against a Planning Commission recommendation to place low-density, single-family zoning on 11 acres that have been the center of controversy for a year.

Instead, the council ordered the city staff to prepare an ordinance that would zone the area at an even lower density, reaffirming a 1979 rezoning that was challenged in court this June.

Perplexed city officials have been trying to reconstruct the events that led to the rezoning of the block north of Hillcrest Boulevard between El Nido Avenue and Highland Place from R-L (residential low density) to R-F (residential foothill) while properties to the west, south and east remained R-L. Staff members noticed the discrepancy in a routine review of zoning.

“The change may have been intentional or an oversight,” Community Development Director Don Hopper wrote in a November memo to the city manager. “The historical record is silent.”

No public hearing notice was ever published to define the Hillcrest block as being considered for rezoning, and there are no records of public testimony or staff reports on the zoning of the area.

The matter ended up in court in June when the city, responding to residents’ complaints, prosecuted Highland Place resident Stephen Abernethy for keeping two horses on his property in violation of R-F zoning.

Land classified R-L is intended primarily for single-family dwellings on regular subdivision lots, while R-F properties are usually sparsely developed hillside areas with steeper slopes.

R-F lots must average an acre (43,560 square feet), while R-L lots must have a minimum of only 7,500 square feet. However, R-L zoning allows two horses per 14,000 square feet, while R-F zoning requires at least 1 1/2 acres to keep horses.

Abernethy, who owns 20,000 square feet of property, claimed that his land was illegally zoned R-F and that he had conformed to R-L zoning regulations.

Abernethy acknowledged that when he bought the property two years ago he was aware of the R-F zoning, but he said city staff told him that horses were permitted.

Evidence presented at the trial showed that at a Planning Commission meeting in January, the commission chairman, Eric Faith, said “that there was an error and that maybe someone had used the wrong color crayon when drawing the zoning map.”

In an interview Thursday, Faith, who was a city councilman when the city revised its zoning ordinance in 1979, said: “That’s what we decided probably happened. I have absolutely no recollection” how the change came about.

The city’s position during the trial, according to Hopper’s November memo, was that “all that mattered was that (the land) had been zoned R-F and that it was not an option for the property owners to simply ignore the fact because the designation may have been enacted by mistake.”

‘Didn’t Intend to Rezone’

But in June, Municipal Court Judge Kirkland Nyby ruled that Abernethy could keep his horses, finding that the council “really didn’t intend to rezone that area . . . (and) the rezoning was not done according to law.”

Nyby remarked that the case was “much more interesting than I have had in a long time.”

To set matters straight, the Planning Commission recommended at its Oct. 12 meeting that the council designate the area as R-L.

Roughly 30 single-family homes sit in the disputed area, where streets climb at about a 12% grade.

“From a land use/planning standpoint,” Hopper’s memo said, “(the area) is very characteristic of other R-L areas. In any community where you have a rolling section (from flatland to the hills), you’re going to have relatively steep slopes.” He added that city staff found the lots to be in a regular subdivision pattern, an R-L quality.

Explaining that zoning for the area is now in limbo, Hopper told the City Council on Tuesday: “The court stopped short of saying (that the R-F zoning) should be changed.”

At the sometimes emotional meeting, Debbie DeBie of El Nido Avenue presented the council with a petition signed by more than 80 residents favoring R-F designation.

Thirteen other speakers echoed her sentiments, most wanting to limit housing density on the hillside.

But George Baker, who owns five houses on nearly 3 acres on the north end of the block, said he favors the denser R-L zoning.

Under R-L, he would be able to build at least seven more homes. Under R-F, he would be limited to three more.

Miles Tolbert, a Highland resident since 1956, told the council: “I bought (my property) as (R-L), and I worked 30 years to pay for it. I don’t want it downzoned.”

Mayor’s Recollection

In a final twist, the mystery of the rezoning seemed to be solved Tuesday when, after the 2-hour meeting, Mayor Robert Bartlett, who was a councilman during the zoning revision, exclaimed that he remembered what had happened.

“Now I remember going over this. We couldn’t find a demarcation point (showing where the hillside area began), so we drew a line down and made a little pocket,” he said. “It was not an error.”

A startled Hopper said Wednesday: “I was surprised that it is so late in the process that Bob remembers that, but it is reassuring.”

City Atty. Rick Morillo said there will be no legal problems “if the Council reaffirms that (R-F is) what they want.”

But Abernethy contends that the city would have to compensate homeowners for downzoning their property and depriving them of some current uses, such as owning horses.

“They will open themselves up for a lawsuit,” he said. “If they want me to move the horses, they’ll have to compensate me $200,000 a year” for boarding them at a stable.