Shadow Puts Home in Doubt : Architecture: Laguna Beach’s controversial Design Review Board rejects plan that would partially block neighbor’s sunlight.

Picket fences and the wrong shade of white paint have failed the test of this city’s Design Review Board in the past year. On Thursday night, it was the shadow.

Meredith and Eugene Gratz want to build their dream house on a Laguna Beach hillside, but the size of the proposed 5,200-square-foot home and the shadow it would cast onto a neighbor’s house caused the review board to reject the design.

Opposing the Gratzes’ design is a would-be neighbor who has lived in a house downhill from the property since 1935. Already, Dan McFarland said, he has added four skylights to his 1,200-square-foot home because the hillside blocks out a good deal of sunlight. It would be unfair, he feels, for him and his wife to have to live, literally, in the shadow of a larger house.

“We don’t get much sun anyway, because the sun doesn’t come up in this area until about 10:30 and it sets at about 4:30,” he said. “That, to me, is a significant issue.”

The Gratzes, however, say they are being discriminated against by a city that prefers “cottage architecture” to larger homes. Over the past year, they say, they have trimmed the square footage, lowered the ceilings, eliminated a swimming pool and even hired a “sun expert” to challenge McFarland’s charges about how much shade will be splashed on his home. So far, the Gratzes say, the process has cost them $35,000, including $7,000 for sun studies.

In the wake of the Design Review Board’s unanimous rejection of their latest plans Thursday night, the Gratzes say they will appeal to the City Council and may sue the city. They are already suing McFarland, alleging that he has slandered them and obstructed approval of their home. McFarland has called the lawsuit “outrageous.”

“In any other city, the house would have been built a year ago, and we would have beat the recession,” a frustrated Meredith Gratz said. “If you’re reasonable people, you can look at this and say, ‘This is a joke.’ ”

The solar expert hired to analyze the situation said the Gratzes’ house would cast a partial shadow on McFarland’s roof only during the winter months. “Any house you build there, unless you build it underground, is going to cast some shadow,” John Stebbins said. “So the issue is what is reasonable.”

Stebbins, who used to teach classes in solar energy at Saddleback College and now prepares computer simulations for builders, said this is the first time he has heard of a shadow standing in the way of a building permit.

“It’s very unusual for this to happen,” he said. “The weird thing about it is that buildings just shade other buildings.”

Tall stakes were placed on the Gratzes’ property to approximate the house’s proposed roof line so shadows could be measured. During the discussion Thursday night, board member Meg Monahan said she visited the property and noticed that shadows from the stakes fell over more than half of McFarland’s roof. But representatives for the Gratzes said the longer shadow was caused by the proposed chimney.

“We have attempted to meet all the requirements as they’ve been presented to us,” said David Coulter, who designed the house. “We would be more than willing to move that chimney if that became the final concluding issue.”

But moving the chimney would not be enough, board members said. They also objected to the “mass and bulk” of the home. “I see this as an imposing structure looming over Park Avenue,” Helen Krugman said.

After the board’s rejection, Meredith Gratz left the building immediately, but her husband stood outside council chambers, fuming over the expenses he has incurred to no avail. “I am not a wealthy man,” Eugene Gratz said. “I work very, very hard for my money.”

Design Review Board members are no strangers to controversy. They are praised by some residents for their efforts to preserve the visual harmony of Laguna Beach neighborhoods and assailed by others who think they wield too much power.

Earlier this year, some residents balked when the board refused to allow Nick and Denise Karagozian to move into their new home because it was painted a lighter shade of white than had been agreed to by the Karagozians and the board. The City Council rejected the Karagozians’ appeal. However, after the Karagozians’ situation was publicized and the community rallied to the couple’s defense, the city negotiated a compromise with them.

In another attention-getting case, the board rejected a picket fence built by homeowner Kathy Gallaway because it was 6 inches too high. In that case, the City Council agreed to allow the fence to stand.

Some Laguna Beach architects have complained recently that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get a project approved by the board. The problem is that the board’s decisions are too subjective, architect Christian Abel said. Even when a home is designed according to city regulations, the plan may still be rejected, he said.

“The guidelines don’t mean a damn thing,” said Abel, who was the Design Review Board’s president in the late 1970s. “Until you’ve been through it, you cannot even begin to understand the frustration of this.” Introducing shadows into the equation is “ludicrous,” he said.

“I’ve heard of too massive, too large, too this, too that, no view equity, but to suddenly say a building is blocking the sun?” he said. “Looks like we’ve got to dig a 12-foot hole to build a 13-foot house.”

Board Chairman Barbara Metzger, however, said the board’s final decisions are not subjective, because they are based upon specific city regulations. “We do the best we can as individuals, and when we agree, there’s something more than subjective about our decision,” she said.

Johanna Felder, president of Village Laguna, a group formed to preserve the “village atmosphere” of Laguna Beach, said board members deserve credit for working hard to preserve the special character of different neighborhoods.

“I can see how the architects always feel they’re mistreated when things like this happen, but they’re only looking at their own project,” she said. “I really feel a lot of people do feel (the board) does a very valuable job in this town.”

Felder said that sunlight is a reasonable factor for board members to consider. “If somebody is in a shadow, their house changes completely from what it was,” she said.

But Coulter, who has worked in Laguna Beach for 13 years, said that by the time a project is approved--or rejected--by the board, ill will can run deep between those for and those against the project.

“This process has been a nightmare, not only for my clients but for the McFarlands,” he said. “We now have neighbor against neighbor in a situation where there’s damage and pain all around.”

Path of the Shadow On Dec. 21, the day the sun would cast the greatest shadow from Meredith and Eugene Gratz’s proposed house onto Dan McFarland’s neighboring home, the average shadow would be small, home designer David Coulter says. Solar expert John Stebbins, hired by the Gratzes, said the shadowwould lengthen during the afternoon but would shade no more than half of the roof at any time. For eight months of the year, he said, the new house would not cast a shadow on the neighbor’s rooftop. Source: David W. Coulter Design