Hide & Sneak : Next L.A. / A Look at issues, people and ideas helping to shape the emerging metropolis : The growing number of illegal home renovations reflect changes in work patterns and the makeup of households.

Standing in Alex Istanbullu’s garage, looking out on a vegetable garden and a small lawn shaded by eucalyptus trees, it’s hard to believe he is on the edge of a cultural frontier.

“We consider ourselves completely middle-class people, living on a normal street in a normal house,” Istanbullu said. “But I guess we pushed the envelope here. We built something unlawful in order to accommodate our lifestyle.”

His neighborhood is a woodsy hollow of Laurel Canyon where it’s not impossible to conjure up a back-yard still or a microbrewery in the garage. But all Istanbullu is talking about is his wife’s office.

A 10- by 20-foot glass-and-plywood room with a desk and a word processor, it was once a concrete stall that housed the family’s Jeep Cherokee. But it is now the place where Mona Houghton, a writer, plies her trade in violation of zoning laws that ban garage conversions and home offices in Los Angeles and most other cities in California.

Istanbullu and Houghton, and thousands of other ordinary law-abiding homeowners, are quietly--and often illicitly--transforming the urban landscape. They convert family rooms into studios, run businesses out of spare bedrooms and turn garages and basements into offices or “granny flats”--all in defiance of zoning laws that enforce a traditional definition of single-family neighborhoods.

Illegal renovation is nothing new, but this wave reflects changes in work patterns and the makeup of American households. Zoning rules established in simpler times a generation or more ago clash with the increasing desire or need of people to work at home, take in roommates or care for ailing parents.

“All kinds of people are living technically illegally in their homes,” said Santa Monica architect Julie Eizenberg.

“A woman needs live-in child care. So she creates a second unit inside her house. Or a couple who are not married or romantically involved want to share a house, for economic reasons or security.” So they split it into halves, Eizenberg said, creating a duplex that violates one house/one family zoning requirements.

The make-overs are not always visible to the casual observer. “Almost everything I do is snuck in,” said a Santa Monica architect who asked to remain anonymous. “People will say they want a family room extension when what they really are hiring me to do is build a studio.”

To avoid detection by building inspectors--who are often tipped off to bootleg work by complaining neighbors--the remodeling is typically not showy.

“People want it hidden away,” the architect said. “They don’t want conspicuous ostentation. It’s architecture you don’t see from the street.”

Planning boards across California are struggling with the clash between old-style zoning and the new reality. Only 36% of American households are made up of married couples with children, even fewer in urban areas such as Los Angeles. And an estimated 9 million Americans work at home today, a figure expected to jump as high as 50 million in the next 15 years.

The trick is to let people work at home without disturbing the neighbors and to let homeowners add on apartments suitable for baby-sitters or aging parents without changing the character of single-family neighborhoods.

In Los Angeles, the Planning Department is caught between politically powerful neighborhood associations that are opposed to change and a growing force of telecommuters, builders, planners, architects and low-income housing advocates who believe that zoning laws are out of touch with the times.

“The opposition is driven by an outmoded perception of L.A. as a low-key, quiet, easy to get around kind of place where everybody can have a single-family home and drive to work every day in their own car,” said Deborah Murphy, a member of the city planning staff.

Those who find the changes threatening fear further incursions into the tenuous quality of neighborhood life, some experts say.

“We are undergoing radical social change in the way we balance our home life and our work life,” said Mark Winogrand, director of planning for Culver City. “Many think that if work invades home it will injure the quality and stability of life.”

For the time being, the zoning reform movement has stalled in Los Angeles.

“The city has had a hard time trying to frame a useful ordinance that prohibits things like shipping and receiving, or clients coming to the door, or other things that will clog up the streets and bother the neighbors,” said architect Bill Christopher, a spokesman for a federation of neighborhood groups that are skeptical of looser zoning.

He also invoked the specter of home sweatshops, of 15 sewing machines going at full tilt 12 hours a day “and no one around to enforce health and safety regulations.”

Even advocates of change such as Margaret Crawford, chairwoman of the history and theory of architecture program at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, acknowledge a drawback of the new neighborhood order.

“I live near a guy who runs an illegal body shop, and my hedge is impregnated with fiberglass resin,” she said. “Obviously, lines have to be drawn. There have to be limits on what is allowable in residential neighborhoods. It’s a proper subject for debate.”

But while officials wrestle with these issues, the future is unfolding without a whole lot of regard for the laws that are on the books.

High in Laurel Canyon, Istanbullu made no attempt to hide his own garage conversion. Through a sweeping picture window that he installed, the accouterments of a modern, comfortable office including bookcases and a sofa are easy to see.

A city inspector, tipped off by a neighbor, did write up a violation on the conversion. Istanbullu said he satisfied the inspector and the neighbor by erecting a carport.

As an architect, the native of Turkey welcomes the visible signs of change in Los Angeles neighborhoods.

“I was brought up on a street with retail shops on the ground floor of most buildings,” he said. “I grew up over a pastry shop.”

Istanbullu said he would prefer if the market, pharmacy and dry cleaners were within walking distance of his home. And he suggests that the time is coming when those conveniences may be close by.

“I came here to find 1950s America, everything and everyone spread out. But now America is becoming a lot more like where I came from. And I find that quite exciting.”

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Behind the Walls: As lifestyles and living arrangements change, home remodeling more often clashes with building codes and zoning rules. Bootleg work done without permits may include converting garages to business use or adding mini- apartments for relavtives, roommates or tenants. *

Plumbing and wiring: Work done without permits on bootleg remodeling can be substandard, posing fire and damage hazards. *

Apartments: Second living units are illegal on most single-family lots. Zoning rules enforce low neighborhood density. *

Illegal rooms: Rooms constructed in garages or over patios can violate codes for windows, ventilation, floor space and foundation thickness. *

Garage conversion: Remodeling into an office or playroom violates requirement that homes offer covered parking. *

Home business: Traffic from employees and deliveries is one reason most home businesses are banned in Los Angeles and other cities. Source: Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety; Researched by NONA YATES / Los Angeles Times