Creation of Historic Area Fuels Dispute : Neighbors: Strife arises over couple’s plan to add a second story to their bungalow.

A Redondo Beach board last week created the city’s first local historic district, honoring one of its oldest neighborhoods but fueling a bitter dispute between preservationists and a local couple who want to remodel their turn-of-the-century bungalow.

On a 5-2 vote, the Preservation Commission agreed to set aside for conservation a collection of 15 houses on North Gertruda Avenue, a designation that gives the commission authority to review any exterior changes to the homes. The decision marked the first use of a 1988 ordinance aimed at rescuing the beach city’s few remaining older neighborhoods from the relentless march of condominium development.

But not everyone in the district agreed with the designation, and commissioners predicted that their decision will be appealed to the City Council.

Included in the district was the corner home of Jackie and Herman Bose, who for more than a year have fought an escalating battle to add a second story, install new windows, build a garage and restore their house’s original clapboard facade.

Their renovation plans have not passed muster with some of their neighboring homeowners, preservationists who several years ago won the street a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. It was not until last month, when the City Council sided with the Boses by granting them a building permit, that the neighbors applied for the additional local historic designation, which effectively headed off the council’s decision.

The preservationists note that, if the Boses’ remodeling plans go through, the National Register will no longer consider the Bose home a historic place. The loss would not be enough to cost the whole neighborhood its listing in the National Register, but the preservationists fear that it would erode the neighborhood’s character.

The Boses, on the other hand, have charged that their neighbors have singled them out for harassment, ignoring their pleas to be left alone and their arguments that, even if their home were to be remodeled, it wouldn’t look much different from any of the other homes on the block.

The Boses’ concern was amplified late last month, when a threatening note was slipped under their door. “This is only the start,” it read in part.

The Boses are the only black couple on the block.

The racist note and the long-running nature of the dispute have fueled bitter feelings up and down the tidy old block of Craftsman-style and Colonial bungalows.

Until the note was slipped under their door, the Boses and neighbors insisted that race had nothing to do with the matter. The neighbors have denied any connection to the note, expressing hurt and confusion at the implication that their desire to preserve the Bose home was tinged with bigotry.

“There is discrimination,” Jackie Bose told the commission.

But Mary Campbell, another homeowner, disputed that claim.

“We don’t want to cause strife and trauma. We’re loving people, and want to live peacefully as a block,” Campbell said. Creation of a historic district, she said, would prevent future confrontations over vintage homes by making the Preservation Commission the architectural arbiter, instead of leaving the negotiations up to the neighbors.

The decision was a painful one for the young commission, which was formed as a result of the 1988 ordinance. Although several commissioners urged their colleagues not to let the Bose dispute influence their vote, others insisted that it could not be decided in a vacuum.

The Boses said afterward that they have not yet decided whether to appeal the decision to the City Council or capitulate and redesign the windows and roof line in a way neighbors feel will be historically correct.

“I don’t know what we’ll do,” said Jackie Bose. “All I know is, this is giving me a headache.”