San Marino May Take It, Like It or Not : Annexation: City that has banned apartments plans to annex county land with an apartment house on it to keep a mini-mall from being built.

Officials in this city, where apartments and condominiums are banned, have decided to do the unthinkable: annex an apartment house.

In a move ironically designed to protect the exclusive nature of the community, the City Council took steps Wednesday to annex a small chunk of unincorporated county land that holds the apartment house and a service station.

This, officials hope, will give San Marino more control over the land, where developers have proposed building a small shopping center.

“We don’t want to annex an apartment house,” Vice Mayor Eugene Dryden said, “but we would like to ensure that any commercial developments that occur on those properties are in concert with the city’s General Plan.”

Also Wednesday, the council voted to continue supplementing the city’s police, fire and paramedic budgets by as much $2 million a year with a four-year extension of the city’s special public safety tax.

To continue in effect, the tax must be approved by two-thirds of the voters in November.

During the four years, the tax would increase to no more than $300 a year for people in the lowest of the city’s seven taxing categories, officials said. Those in the highest category would pay no more than $830 a year.

San Marino began assessing the tax eight years ago to help pay for services in a city that gets most of its revenue from residential property taxes.

In the annexation matter, city officials said taking the aged, wooden, four-unit apartment house into San Marino is preferable to having a new mini-mall sprout in its place just across the city line.

San Marino has much stricter zoning rules than Los Angeles County. Restrictions on the ratio of parking spaces to the square footage of commercial developments have, in effect, banned mini-malls from the city.

State law requires that a city “pre-zone” any property it wants to annex. The City Council said Wednesday that if the land, less than an acre, is annexed, it would be zoned C-1, for commercial use only. However, if no commercial development takes place, the apartment house and the gas station could remain.

The site is bordered on three sides by the eastern edge of San Marino and on two of those sides by Carver Elementary School. Officials said they want more control over commercial development next to the school because of possible safety hazards to the children.

The city’s annexation plans must be reviewed by the county Local Agency Formation Commission. If that agency approves the application after holding public hearings, the issue is returned to the city for further public hearings and a vote.

San Marino City Manager John Nowak said the whole process could take two months to two years.

Mootae Kim, who subleases the gas station from Texaco Corp., said he was unaware of the proposed annexation. Owners of the apartment complex could not be reached for comment.