Council Delays Action on Hillside Buildings : La Canada Flintridge: A meeting is scheduled Dec. 3 to discuss the size and type of construction that would be allowed.

Action on a proposal to impose strict new rules on hillside development in La Canada Flintridge was postponed for two weeks Monday after the City Council bogged down in lengthy discussions on other development standards.

After a year of study by the city’s Planning Department and Planning Commission, the council was scheduled to decide the sizes and types of buildings that would be permitted on hillsides, which contain the only significant amount of developable land remaining in the city.

But the council postponed action until Dec. 3 after Monday’s public session ran until almost midnight. Much of the evening’s discussion focused on recently adopted building restrictions designed to curtail a proliferation of oversized houses being developed on undersized lots.

New hillside development standards recommended by the Planning Commission would require that construction be more sensitive to the character of neighborhoods and compatible in architectural design.

Proposed regulations suggest that new or remodeled structures in the hills be designed to blend in with the wooded, natural terrain, “rather than creating monumental homes that are highly visible.”

The proposal would also severely limit the amount of hillside grading permitted for development and would preserve prominent land forms, such as ridges, knolls, valleys and creeks.