HUNTINGTON BEACH : Height Rules Change Proposed for City

City planners this week introduced a proposal to change the way they measure building height, adding a new wrinkle to a 6-year-old dispute over the height of a home overlooking Huntington Harbour.

Planning Commission members on Tuesday delayed for two months their decision on the new proposal, partly because of the ongoing flap over Emad Ali Hassan’s 39-foot-high house, which he built in 1985.

The code change proposed by the city planning staff would eliminate a host of measuring adjustments used for buildings constructed on a slope. If adopted, all buildings would be measured from the curb to the highest point of the structure.

Even with that measure in place, Hassan’s house, which is built on a slope, would still exceed the city’s 30-foot height limit, senior planner Hal Simmons said.

But the change would bring the home closer to meeting the height code, so some Planning Commission members said they fear that it might encourage the City Council to overrule their decision and approve Hassan’s home.

The commission last month ruled that Hassan should remove the top story of his home because it exceeds the height limit by 9 feet, saying it was wrongly approved by the City Council six years ago. Hassan has appealed that decision to the council, which is scheduled to consider it on Jan. 20. The council had planned to hear the appeal at its next meeting, but staff members postponed the hearing at Hassan’s request.

Michael Adams, the city’s community development director, has assured the commission that Hassan’s appeal will be heard before the code change is considered, commission member Roy Richardson said Wednesday.

“It’s not fair to have the appeal process go through with changed standards,” Richardson said.

Hassan’s neighbor, Charles Reince, sued the city for originally allowing Hassan to build a home higher than code limits. A state Court of Appeal this summer agreed that the city erred by allowing construction of the home by applying a rarely used building code, rather than applying the standard zoning code.

Hassan last month sought a variance to keep his home as it stands, but the commission turned him down.

The proposed change in calculating building height was proposed apart from the Hassan dispute.

The proposal is the culmination of more than a year’s study among planning officials and members of the city’s Harbour Code Committee. That committee is a citizens’ advisory group established to set building heights for homes in Huntington Harbour, but the new measurement rules would apply citywide.