City’s Bureaucracy Is Accused of Slowing Quake Repairs

More than 15 months after the Northridge earthquake, many property owners in the San Fernando Valley are complaining that the bureaucracy at the city of Los Angeles is slowing their efforts to get building permits and inspections.

“Getting timely inspections is a problem,” said Larry J. Kosmont, president of Kosmont & Associates Inc. in Sherman Oaks. Once a field inspector comes out to look at a property, that inspector frequently imposes different requirements on the owner than the people working behind the counter at the Department of Building and Safety, Kosmont said.

Property owners and city inspectors spend a lot of time debating what needs to be changed so that it complies with today’s building code and what can remain grandfathered as a “pre-existing condition,” Kosmont said. Any structural or life safety deficiencies generally need to be brought up to current code when remodeling, Kosmont said. This includes installing fire alarms, sprinklers and structural elements that will strengthen a building against the next big quake.

“The field inspector has a tremendous amount of latitude in interpreting building codes,” Kosmont said. “While fire, life and handicap issues are important, the Department of Building and Safety has been overly scrutinous and diligent.” The result, he said, is that many rebuilding projects are costing 10% to 20% more than they might need to. These added construction costs are paid by property owners, who rarely have insurance that covers the added costs of rebuilding in conformance to new codes.

Kosmont recalled a Sherman Oaks office building where city officials asked that certain interior walls be completely rebuilt after the earthquake so that the width of the corridor would comply with the current standard of five feet, instead of merely 4 1/2 feet. All the other interior walls had been built out already and changing the width of the small corridor would have cost at least $20,000, Kosmont said.

“We couldn’t get a reasonable ear at the department, so we had to go to a higher authority at the mayor’s office,” Kosmont said. “I don’t think the mayor’s office or City Council office should have to intervene in these skirmishes, but sometimes there is no choice.”

“Because of last year’s earthquake, more people are realizing the frustration of the city building permit process,” said Benjamin Reznik, managing partner at the law firm Reznik & Reznik in Sherman Oaks. “Property owners are getting kicked around from place to place.”

Reznik recalled representing the owners of a Granada Hills apartment building who were asked by the city to make many structural changes to comply with current building codes. “The local inspectors wanted to impose certain conditions that would have made it very costly to repair the building after the earthquake,” Reznik said. “After discussions with the department, we were able to get them to back off.

“In many cases, the requirements of the Department of Building and Safety are not practical or even possible,” Reznik said. The most frequent conflicts between property owners and the city happen over compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires all sorts of accommodations for the handicapped. The ADA sets certain standards for door widths, bathroom hardware, wheelchair ramps and other building features. New construction must meet ADA standards, but buildings being rehabbed or repaired may or may not have to comply with the ADA--depending on the type of building, the costs of compliance and how tough local inspectors want to be.

Dan Garcia, head of a recent city-appointed committee organized to study entitlement and permitting, said: “The system is not working.” Garcia is also chairman of the Community Redevelopment Agency and a senior vice president at Warner Bros. in Burbank. “We surveyed hundreds of people applying for permits--and everybody said they are getting treated badly.”

Garcia’s committee concluded recently that: “The city of Los Angeles entitlement process can best be described as uncertain and endless.” The committee compared the building permit process in Los Angeles to other jurisdictions and found that it is “more lengthy, more complex, less predictable and more costly.”

The committee has proposed to make building permits and other approvals easier to get. Highlights of the plan include assigning a “case manager” to every application so that one person has ultimate responsibility for that application, and allowing certified architects and contractors to go ahead with certain simple building projects without scrutiny from the city.

Some of the committee proposals will be implemented by mayoral directive; others are awaiting City Council approval. Some homeowner groups are concerned that the changes may allow developers and builders to have too much independence, so several of the committee proposals will be the subject of heated debate.

*

Two problems that are among the most serious for homeowners in the Valley concern different requirements by different inspectors and the subjectivity of whether something in a structure that’s been damaged needs to be retrofitted, or merely replaced.

“Right now, any inspector can do whatever the heck they want and you’re stuck holding the bag,” Garcia said. Building inspectors and officials in the Department of Building and Safety counter that they’re just trying to follow the rules.

Property owners who face problems with securing building permits and inspections have several options. Owners can appeal administrative decisions and ask for another review. Another possibility for property owners is that they can contact the mayor’s office or their local City Council member. For disputes that get complicated or expensive, the assistance of an attorney or development consultant may be advisable.

Finally, Garcia suggested, property owners having problems with building permits or other entitlements may want to contact Progress L. A., a private group organized to encourage change in the entitlement and permitting process. The number to call is (213) 244-2565.