2 Views of Protecting Vistas in Rancho P.V.

You’re a Rancho Palos Verdes homeowner afraid that a neighbor’s second-story addition to his home will spoil your view of the coastline or of a sylvan canyon. Or it could be that a tree on someone’s property down the hill is getting big enough to block out half of Santa Catalina Island.

At the polls Nov. 7, you will be able to choose between two regulations--Propositions L and M--to deal with such problems.

Existing city regulations protect against serious view impairment from structures. The proposed measures, however, would expand these protections by lowering the 30-foot maximum allowed by variance and establishing specific procedures for preserving views when a property owner applies for a variance. And either measure would, for the first time, protect against losing views to growing foliage.

Although the two measures have the same objectives, a host of major and minor differences are sparking a debate over which the voters should choose.

The two key differences in the measures involve how they could be amended and who would pay for removing problem foliage.

Proposition L, an initiative submitted by petition last year by the Rancho Palos Verdes Council of Homeowners Assns., may be changed only by a vote of the people. Proposition M, an ordinance drafted later by the homeowner council and the City Council, may be amended by the council.

Jeannette Mucha, B a past president of the homeowner council, called Proposition L “a people’s initiative” that 3,200 residents petitioned for in March, 1988, because the city had not acted to prevent view impairment.

“If they want assurance that some view will remain, L is the stronger,” she said.

But Councilman Mel Hughes, a proponent of Proposition M, says amending view regulations at the ballot box is “not practical.”

When offending trees or foliage have to be trimmed or removed, Proposition L requires the owner of the foliage to pay for it. Proposition M puts financial responsibility on the homeowner wishing to have a view restored.

John Arand, also a past president of the homeowners council and a proponent of Proposition L, calls the payment issue “the big difference.”

“If a guy has trees blocking my view, why should I have to pay to take them down? He does not have unlimited air rights above his property,” he said.

However, Warren J. Sweetnam, the current homeowner council president, who is backing M, said the payment requirement in that proposition is designed to defend it against legal challenge by giving something to both parties.

“If the owner has to trim his trees, he loses his trees and has to pay for it, also,” he said. “He gets nothing, but the person wanting a view gets that.”

On other points, Proposition L is stricter on maximum height of structures that might be allowed through a variance--24 feet as opposed to 26 feet--and is more specific about what constitutes view impairment. Proposition L establishes that neither buildings nor foliage more than 16 feet tall may infringe on more than 5% of a view, whereas Proposition M requires that views not be significantly impaired.

Proposition L leaves it up to the city planning director to order view restorations where warranted, whereas in Proposition M, such decisions are made by a council-appointed, seven-member view restoration committee. Proposition M also permits the committee to limit the trimming of a tree if its removal would be an “unreasonable infringement” on the foliage owner’s privacy.

And unlike Proposition L--which applies to all zones in the city--Proposition M regulates only residential property.

Proposition M, which Sweetnam calls “a compromise thing,” was hammered out in meetings among homeowner leaders and council members to remedy what the city considered constitutional problems in an initiative submitted by the homeowner council, an umbrella group of the city’s 32 homeowner associations.

Then-City Atty. Steve Dorsey argued, among other things, that the initiative that later became Proposition L did not properly define a viewing area and that requiring people to remove foliage might be an unconstitutional taking of property.

Proposition L requires those proposing a new structure taller than 16 feet to submit with their applications signatures from owners of property within 500 feet. Dorsey construed this as giving neighbors an unconstitutional veto over development.

But Arand said Dorsey misinterprets this provision. “Its intent never was to allow a veto, but to make sure everyone is aware” of a building project, he said.

In Proposition M, the requirement asks an applicant to “take reasonable steps” to notify neighbors, but not to obtain signatures.

Sweetnam said the wording in Proposition M is intended to avoid legal challenge.

Proposition M would have the city and the property owner agree on a viewing area within a dwelling from where the “best and most important view” can be seen. The view from there--which could extend in a horizontal arc for 360 degrees--would be protected from significant impairment.

Under Proposition L, the protected view also would be determined by the city and the property owner. It would also extend in a horizontal arc for 360 degrees, but the view would be determined from anywhere within the lot’s buildable area.

Both measures contain severability clauses, which provide that if portions of the ordinance are held invalid by a court, the rest of it remains in effect.