Hilly Block Gains Ground for Historic Designation

A cluster of cottages on Garnet Street is on its way to becoming Redondo Beach’s first city-designated historic district--despite one homeowner’s contention that the neighborhood is “just a bunch of cheap, asbestos-siding houses.”

The western end of the hilly street’s 500 block, where neighbors have been feuding over preservation for months, will be considered for landmark designation Wednesday by the city’s new Preservation Commission.

The public hearing marks the first effort by a group of local homeowners to seek aesthetic protection under the city’s new historic preservation ordinance.

It also marks the latest chapter in a fierce grass-roots dispute.

“We want to try to keep a sense of historic ambience,” said Frank Condon, who owns one of the wood Craftsman- and Colonial-style cottages that line the street. Although the houses are modest, the newest was built in 1928, he said, and Condon and others hope to preserve the neighborhood as an example of what Redondo Beach looked like before the days of tear-downs and condominiums.

But those hopes were threatened this spring when property owner Tony Ballejos announced plans to tear down what he calls his “lopsided, termite-infested and puny” cottage at 511 Garnet and replace it with a four-bedroom “dream house” three times bigger.

The dispute set off months of argument about the value of preservation versus property rights and prompted the City Council to issue a five-month moratorium on Ballejos’ new house. When the moratorium expired Oct. 31, Condon and eight other homeowners who live around the Ballejos cottage petitioned to have the neighborhood declared a historic district under the city ordinance, which took effect in September.

It seemed a stopgap measure at best. Under the ordinance, changes to a city-designated landmark cannot be banned entirely, only forestalled for a maximum of 225 days.

But the delays have been enough to discourage Ballejos, who said the tenaciousness of Condon’s group has prompted him to put his dream house “on the back burner.” The money he borrowed to build it has been channeled into other real estate projects, he said, and although he is out $4,000 for blueprints, he won’t argue against the historic designation at the public hearing Wednesday.

“Let them have their block,” he said this week from his home in another section of Redondo Beach.

“Sure, I’d like to build that house, but I’m not going to fight City Hall. That block is their life. If they don’t want me to put up a huge house, I won’t. I didn’t know I was going to get everybody’s goat just by trying to tear down that dilapidated house.”

Ballejos said he will “wait until the dust settles” to decide whether he ever wants to put forth the effort to remodel the 705-square-foot bungalow.

“Still, in all honesty, I don’t know what they’re trying to preserve. A bunch of cheap, asbestos-siding houses? My house is what developers call a tear-down. A scraper. It’s junk. The house is junk!”