Proposal to Allow More Horses Divides Neighborhood Residents
On Garden Street, in a serene west Glendale neighborhood next to Griffith Park, Karen and Warwick Stone keep two horses in their back yard, along with a manure pile they compost for gardening.
The couple moved to the tree-lined, modest neighborhood two years ago just so they could have horses, said Karen Stone, “and a lifestyle rather than just a house.”
Two blocks north, on Fairfield Street, Steve Lane lives in the house in which he was born, the house his grandfather bought in 1935. The only “horse” Lane needs and wants, he said, is his 102-pound black Labrador.
In the past, horses on Garden Street never bothered Lane. The Stones never heard complaints from neighbors. But a proposal to allow more horses in west Glendale has divided residents such as Lane and the Stones over whether such animals belong--and over what the character of the neighborhood should be.
Spurred by a petition signed by 36 residents, city officials are considering changing the neighborhood’s zoning. Although some lots in and around the six-acre area already are allowed to have horses, the proposal would zone for horses on the 43 properties that are not.
City staff members are expected today to instruct the Environmental Review Board that changing the zoning would not pose any major problems. The board recently decided not to order an environmental impact review, which strengthens the proposal’s chances for approval.
The Planning Commission will hold a public meeting July 9 on the issue. The City Council, which ultimately will approve or reject the proposed change, will hear public testimony July 31.
Residents on both sides of the issue have vowed to voice their opinions at those meetings.
“We’re ready to storm City Hall over it,” Karen Stone said. “Our area should be preserved as a horse community. We need to be recognized as a unique community and an asset.”
“It’s totally unreasonable,” Lane said. “I would have to put up with their smell and their flies. The city really doesn’t understand what a can of worms they’re thinking of opening.”
The west Glendale neighborhood, made up of the 1400 blocks of Garden, Randall, Fairfield and Lake Streets between Sonora and Davis avenues, is surrounded by horses. Feed stores and private stables are only a few blocks away, in Burbank. The Griffith Park Equestrian Center is close by. At least two apartment complexes nearby have stables. And several residents in the neighborhood keep horses.
Before the 1960s, the city had no formal zoning for keeping horses, and they were kept freely in neighborhoods such as west Glendale, La Crescenta and Scholl Canyon, said Byron Foote, a city planner.
In 1965, city planners implemented zones for horses. Generally, those areas with horses--such as Garden Street across from Griffith Park--were automatically zoned. In 1967, five lots on the east end of the 1400 block of Randall Street were rezoned for horses, and in 1985, a sixth was added. All of those lots are bordered in the back by an alley, which is used to store special trash bins and as an exit and entrance for the horses, Foote said.
If approved, the zoning change would allow horses on any lot in the neighborhood large enough to keep them. It would require property owners to have a minimum lot size of 3,000 square feet per horse and to keep the animals in stables 35 feet from the rear of the lot and 10 feet away from neighboring properties, said David Bobardt, city planner.
The city of Los Angeles requires lots to be at least 17,500 square feet for horse keeping, and is in the process of raising that requirement to 20,000 square feet, said Arline DeSanctis, a field deputy for Councilman Joel Wachs, whose district includes several areas where horses are allowed.
The average lot in the west Glendale neighborhood is 5,500 square feet--enough to keep one horse, Bobardt said. But officials said they are uncertain how many residents might move horses in if the zoning change is approved. About half of the 43 lots would require major modifications for horses, Bobardt said.
Access could be a problem, he said. Back yards on the south side of Randall Street are separated from Garden Street back yards by the alley. But most back yards in the neighborhood are separated only by fences.
Many of the residents who signed the petition requesting the zoning change said they would welcome more horses in the neighborhood--but would not keep any. And the person who initiated the petition drive in February has since moved to Sacramento.
Proponents, however, say the zoning change is critical--not to increase the number of horses in the neighborhood, but to preserve and firmly establish the area’s character as one of the last “ranchos” around Los Angeles.
The issue is also economic: Horse property is in demand, so allowing horses throughout the neighborhood would raise property values, they said.
“You wake up in the morning, you look out the door and you see a horseshoer shoeing horses out at his truck,” said Susan St. John, a real estate agent living on Randall Street. “It has a nice ambience. It provides a nice country atmosphere and flavor of the West.”
Lane and other residents said they don’t mind the few horses now in the area, because the owners have access to the alley. But they don’t want horses allowed everywhere--particularly next to their back yards.
They believe residents whose lots are not large enough to keep horses would lose property value. And they don’t agree that the “flavor of the West” is needed in their neighborhood.
“The city doesn’t realize that the horse side has an alley,” said Edward Schneider, 83, who has lived on Randall Street for 42 years. “On our side, we don’t have that. The neighbors are just divided by a fence. How can we expect them to keep their horses to themselves with only a fence in between?”
