‘Blockbuster’ Homes Could Get Busted by Revised Codes : Development: Neighbors upset about ‘monster’ houses want building laws changed. Architects fear limits on creativity.

These days, when Larry Keller walks the streets of his La Jolla Shores neighborhood, he no longer sees only charming cottages built generations ago.

The newer, much larger homes that have knocked out the older bungalows and bulge toward their property lines look like monsters to him.

“They just overpower the whole neighborhood,” said Keller, a member of the La Jolla Shores Community Planning Assn. “They crowd the property lines. Their bulk and scale is out of line with the rest of their neighbors. And that angers those of us interested in neighborhood continuity.”

In recent years, politicians and community planning groups from San Diego to Santa Barbara have had raised hackles over the Southern California trend of tearing down older, smaller cottages on prime property and replacing them with large, two- and three-story custom-built homes that dwarf their neighbors.

In the industry, these houses are known as blockbusters, for the way their presence has altered many suburban streets--an effect some residents describe as “the mansionization” of their neighborhoods.

This week, two San Diego city panels--the planning commission and the City Council’sTransportation and Land Use Committee--will hold public hearings into the issue of blockbuster houses, including the loopholes in city building codes that allow the taller newcomers.

But the proposed changes will not come about without argument. Several local architects and developers have criticized the city’s plans to tighten its housing codes, saying the changes would chill the creativity of architects and damage building efforts downtown.

Homeowners who have built such houses say that the trend is a natural by-product of Southern California real estate prices as well as the unsightly condition of many older homes in beachside neighborhoods.

Kemp Biddulph recently finished a 3,100-square-foot, two-story La Jolla home that replaced a 40-year-old cottage on his 6,000-plus square foot lot. If neighbors were complaining, he said, they weren’t doing it to him.

“We paid a lot of money for that lot, and so there’s no question that we went in with the intent of building as big a house as possible on that property--within the constraints of the law, of course,” said the Phoenix car dealer, who uses the home as a summer residence.

“We maxed out what we could as far as the square footage goes, you’re darn right.”

The issue of bigger homes on small and medium-sized lots also hit several notable City Council members between the eyes.

On walks through their own neighborhoods as well as those of their constituents, Mayor Maureen O’Connor, Deputy Mayor Abbe Wolfsheimer and Councilman Ron Roberts have seen enough examples of blockbuster homes to light their political fuses.

“Especially in the older neighborhoods, we’re seeing the worst manipulation of the basic housing codes here,” said Roberts, who lives in the Point Loma area.

“What you’re seeing are unscrupulous builders who come in and destroy the whole feeling of a community. And it’s happening all over, including right outside my own doorstep. You drive around and see these monsters being built, and you ask yourself, ‘How could someone have such bad judgment?’

“The home builders say they’re just going according to the rules. Well, if that’s the case, I say there’s something wrong with the rules.”

During the past year, politicians throughout Southern California have been making similar statements as they try to keep in step with growing community dissatisfaction with the appearance of blockbuster homes.

Since last summer, communities in Los Angeles and Orange counties--including Arcadia, Glendale, Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades and the city of Los Angeles--have adopted anti-blockbuster measures.

Angela Leira, a consultant for the San Diego City Council’s Transportation and Land Use Committee, said the trend is a measure of the price of Southern California land. For smaller homes, the lots often are worth many times the house’s value.

“It’s not just happening in San Diego--this is becoming an issue all over the region,” Leira said. “When people buy expensive property, they want to build every inch of it, use every leverage they can to build up and out--whether they need the space or not.

“And things are not getting any easier for developers--they’re getting worse. There’s a ‘run on the bank’ mentality at work here. They want to build to the maximum allowed because they know that, in three to five years, the laws will be changed, and they won’t be able to let their blueprints run wild any more.”

During the past several months, San Diego city planners have hammered out several proposed revisions in the city’s 20-year-old building codes, which they say were not written specifically enough to preclude blockbusters.

“When we wrote the codes in the early 1970s, there wasn’t the real estate demand there is today,” said Gene Lathrop, a senior planner for the city of San Diego. “We’re trying to rewrite some of the definitions in the planning and zoning regulations, tighten up the loopholes.

“The eventual aim is to cut down on the visual bulk of these buildings so that they conform to what’s already standing in the neighborhood.”

The proposed changes, to be presented Thursday during a public hearing of the city planning commission, include 17 amendments aimed at ensuring such things as that basements, garages and bi-level floors are counted in the structure’s floor-area ratio.

The square footage of single-family homes in the city must make up no more than 60% of the lot size. For a 50-by-100-foot lot, for example, the house could be no more than 3,000 square feet.

But, through use of loopholes--adding garages and basements that are not counted as part of the home’s square footage--builders can exceed the 60% limit.

“Some of the ways these builders have been squeezing their own definitions from these codes would make a jailhouse lawyer proud,” said Tim O’Connell, an assistant to Mayor O’Connor.

During his travels throughout Point Loma, Councilman Ron Roberts has seen homes--especially those built on hillsides--that he said exceed the city’s 30-foot height limit by creative use of landscaping that made a tall house appear much shorter.

Builders also have worked their way around a provision that says basement foundations must be constructed 3 feet below ground.

“It doesn’t say anything about how high the basements can go. So what they do is build basements that are 15 feet high that aren’t even counted in the total floor-area ratio,” Roberts said.

“They sneak extra rooms in these so-called basements so that the homes become 50-60% bigger than they should be. People also build carports--which are legally not counted in the floor-area ratio.

“Then, as soon as the inspector leaves, they close it off and make it a garage or an extra room. There’s just too many tricks going on here.”

Criticism of the proposed code changes has come from both developers and architects who have spoken out at public hearings on the issue.

“It’s a touchy subject,” said Mark Fehlman, an architect who sits on a local legislative committee of the American Institute of Architects. “We’re worried about what such measures would do to architecture overall, not just with residences.”

Fehlman is concerned that the new guidelines would prohibit the building of atriums and other interior designs by counting open space into the floor-area ratio.

“We have a wonderful outdoor environment here in San Diego, and what they would be doing is offering a negative incentive to designs that incorporate that environment.”

He said the new ordinances would penalize homes or buildings with pitched roofs by counting the attic space beneath as potential living space.

“What they’re doing is giving San Diego a flattop,” he said. “Because everyone is going to build these skyscraper-shaped buildings.”

He estimated that more than half of the custom built homes erected in San Diego during the past five years had “pushed the envelope” on design restrictions.

“We know there’s been abuses in this area. But they can’t solve all the problems with just one sweeping rule change. You need to add language into the thing that will offer incentives for atriums.”

Jeremy Cohen, a developer who specializes in downtown residences, said that atriums and open space designs are crucial for inner-city dwellings that often have no back-yard space.

Under the new rules, he said, even elevator ventilation shafts in downtown buildings would be counted as living space--a move that few other cities nationwide have made.

“I’ve been to the meetings and looked at pictures of the dwellings they’re using as motives for these changes,” Cohen said.

“And all of them are shots of hillside homes in La Jolla. You can’t enact ordinances to fix a problem in the suburbs that’s going to negatively affect other areas of the city as well.”

The new definitions, he said, would inhibit the downtown development the city has strived to encourage--effectively down-zoning many buildings by decreasing their potential living space.

City officials say that compromises can be worked out with specific areas and uses throughout the city. But Councilman Roberts said that, as far as he’s concerned, little ground would be given on the issue of interior design.

“It’s real clear to me,” he said. “Anything that is under the roof will be counted as floor space. If it’s not under the roof, it won’t be counted. Because a lot of these people can talk atrium and then put a phantom floor in there. So, if it’s under the roof, it’s going to be counted.”

Fehlman said a better way to approach the problem is reduce the 60% area that single-family homes can now occupy on a piece of property.

Critics charge that the 60% guideline for the amount of space a home can occupy on a property was arbitrary to begin with. “There was little basis in analysis when they picked that number years ago,” said La Jolla Shores resident Keller.

“Back then, nobody came anywhere near the 60% maximum. And today, if everyone on the block develops to that number, it’s pretty clear the open space we enjoy here is going to be lost. And I’ve yet to talk with anyone building such a house who says they need that big a house.”

Other cities in San Diego County have set a much smaller floor-area ratio for new homes built there, he said. Del Mar, for example, has a 35% ceiling on floor-area ratios and has established a design review board as a safeguard against ordinance loopholes.

“It’s what the community desires,” said Del Mar City Planner Jim Sandoval. “People buy into this city for that existing quality, because we don’t have three- and four-story monster residences here.”

San Diego Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer said she is as tired as any neighbor of seeing post-modern palaces and Mediterranean villas springing up near her La Jolla Shores home. On morning walks, she has noticed that, in some neighborhoods, every other house seems to have been replaced by a blockbuster.

“This one drives me absolutely bananas,” she said, pointing to a fortress-like abode being built on the beachfront near the cottages of Birdrock. “It’s totally out of character with the neighborhood.

“It’s absurd what’s going on here. This place looks like some hotel in Vegas and it’s squeezing out some lovely Cape Cod-style homes clustered around it.”

But she prefers to attack the situation one neighborhood at a time.

“I’m not going to bite off a huge hunk,” she said. “It’s better to work with smaller areas where you can isolate the problem.”