New Building Is Too Close for Neighbors

Darryl Roberts would like developers to get the L out of his Studio City neighborhood.

The “L” is an L-shaped office building that has popped up on a residential hillside south of Ventura Boulevard to partially wrap itself around Roberts’ apartment home.

Workers on Friday were putting the finishing touches on the three-story office, highlighted by two huge bulbous, curving windows that are a few feet from Roberts’ front door.

“They look like two big fish eyes,” said Roberts, who has lived in his Sunswept Drive apartment for 5 1/2 years. “It’s an invasion of my privacy. It surrounds me on two sides.”

Angry Studio City residents say Los Angeles officials are at fault for authorizing commercial development on the tiny lot beneath the new $500,000 building.

But they also complain that city officials have been slow to react to complaints about the way the building is constructed--that it has noisy, outdoor steel stairways and that runoff will drain onto the hill of neighboring landowner Mort Allen.

When Allen asked City Councilman Mike Woo’s office to get the Building and Safety Department to investigate, city building inspectors apparently got confused and investigated Allen instead.

Building officials informed Woo’s office Friday that they discovered an illegal patio on one of Allen’s buildings. They said they are withholding an occupancy permit for the structure--which has been continuously occupied since 1971.

“I’m going to make it my first priority on Monday to find out what’s going on,” said Diane Canner, one of Woo’s deputies.

Allen, a real estate broker who owns Roberts’ apartment building, charged that runoff from the building also threatens to undermine the hill behind his Ventura Boulevard real estate office. He said a 1971 landslide slammed into the back of his office, ripped open gas lines “and caused an explosion that blew my roof off.”

“It’s horrendous. We’re very unhappy about commercial construction in what is really a residential area,” agreed Polly Ward, president of the Studio City Residents Assn.

Ward said the city should have noticed the inconsistent commercial zoning during a much-heralded city review of zoning two years ago. At that time, a single-family home sat on the lot.

But office builder Nasser Khalili offered assurances Friday that he will be a good neighbor. He said pumps will divert runoff from Allen’s property. And he denied that his new building is unsafe--or intrusive.

“We don’t see any problem with privacy,” he said.