Developers Finding Legal ‘Window’ Shut in Two Areas : Neighborhoods: A building moratorium has not yet taken effect, but developers are finding it impossible to obtain permits before it does.

The City of Los Angeles is refusing to issue building permits for two areas of Councilman Nate Holden’s 10th District that are covered by a building moratorium that is not yet in effect, according to some developers.

The permit denials have frustrated efforts by developers to get their projects under way during the 30-day window they thought they had between the passage of the ban last week over Mayor Tom Bradley’s veto and its enactment next month.

The moratorium was proposed by Holden in September because developers were trying to build before another growth-management measure, called an Interim Control Ordinance, could wend its way through the planning and public hearing process.

Kenneth Bank, a developer denied a permit, said he doesn’t know how to proceed because the rules keep changing. “I think a lot of people’s rights have been violated,” Bank said. “I think the city has taken a position that is totally illegal.”

Meanwhile, another group of developers who had obtained demolition and building permits before the moratorium was passed has frustrated homeowners by rolling diesel trucks into the neighborhood they fought to preserve and razing five houses on Hi Point Street in the Pico-Fairfax area.

These developers are racing to excavate and get their foundations poured before the temporary moratorium takes effect the first week in November.

“I’m surrounded by diesel trucks,” said homeowner Veda Steinhart, a founding member of the Pico-Fairfax Good Neighbors Assn. “You can imagine what it smells like.”

Steinhart said she had to call police Thursday to get a catering truck to move off the street.

Builders had their complaints too. Mike Stern put a guard at his site in the Pico-Fairfax area after a truckload of water was dumped into his unfinished apartment building foundation a week ago.

The Pico-Fairfax homeowners have argued that their integrated neighborhood of moderately priced, single-family Spanish bungalows was worth saving. But a plan passed a decade ago zoned their area for apartments. A second area near Crenshaw and Wilshire, included in the moratorium, also was rezoned for apartments.

An attorney for several of the developers, Benjamin Reznik, said the Department of Building and Safety is acting illegally and he has threatened legal action if the permits are not issued.

In a letter to Building and Safety General Manager Warren O’Brien, Reznik said there “is no legal justification for utilizing the not-yet-effective moratorium as a basis for denying issuance of a building permit.”

Reznik, who in that instance was acting for a developer seeking to build in the Crenshaw-Wilshire area, said the department cannot treat the moratorium as though it had been adopted as an urgency measure because the 12 council votes required for immediate implementation were not obtained.

O’Brien did not respond to calls from The Times. A secretary said he had instructed another official to answer questions, but that official could not be reached.

However, Assistant City Atty. Claudia McGee-Henry said the department is justified in denying permits. “It is within their discretion to look at the situation and see if during this interim period they want to retain the status quo,” McGee-Henry said.

Holden agreed. “Why let them tear up the place when they know the moratorium is going into effect in three weeks?” he said.

Developers who think their rights are being violated can appeal to the city Board of Building and Safety, an option already taken by two of them, McGee-Henry said. Their appeals are scheduled to be heard this week.

The delays work against the developers, who must have their projects well under way when the ban goes into effect or risk being told to halt construction.

Holden said the homeowners may mount a court challenge to the permits that were issued.

The homeowners are “deflated and demoralized. . . . It’s just another example of what can happen to your community when City Hall doesn’t listen to voters,” he said.

According to Holden, his colleague Robert Farrell has introduced to the City Council another way to slow down the development process. Farrell’s idea is to resurrect a defunct ordinance requiring public notice when a single-family home is to be demolished in case anyone wants to move it.