A Question of Scale
There is no middle of the road on East Culver Avenue in this latest battle between Old Towne preservationists and property rights advocates.
Neighbors have been taking sides since Thanksgiving, when Ralph Zehner, wanting to take advantage of his backyard, proposed building a apartments behind his 1904 Craftsman bungalow. He described the changes to his half-acre, 300-foot-long lot as a $400,000 investment in the neighborhood.
“I’m kind of pit-bullish,” said the 49-year-old Vietnam veteran, who clenched his jaws so hard during one combat battle that he fractured all of his teeth. “I don’t back down. You can’t scare me because I’ve already been to hell. If I wasn’t so tough, I would have thrown in the towel by now.”
The proposal, downsized to include two, two-story duplexes and a cottage, has sparked heated debate well beyond the south side of East Culver Avenue. The Old Towne Preservation Assn., the city’s Design Review Board and the Orange Planning Commission have all decried the proposal, which would bring the first apartment units to the block of single-family homes.
“This will change the neighborhood,” said Shannon Tucker, an Old Towne preservationist who lives two houses from Zehner. “I’ve seen it all over, it changes the pedestrian scale. The neighborhood feeling starts to go away. I want to know what the city is going to do? Tell me now before I sink another dime in this area.”
The answer could come as early as Tuesday, when the dispute comes before the City Council. Both sides are calling the plan a test case for design standards that were strengthened in 1995 to preserve the mile-square Old Towne historic district.
At stake, some say, is a decision that will resolve the past as much as it could direct the future: Old Towne design standards, which were purposely left vague for flexibility, could be more specific after the council decides whether Zehner can build his apartments.
The roots of the dispute date to a 1993 zoning change that allowed multiple dwellings on lots in Old Towne under certain circumstances.
The change posed the potential for major changes to Zehner’s East Culver block, which includes remnants of an old farm, carved up decades ago into 15 lots that are twice as long as any others in Old Towne.
Officials say Zehner, the first to propose a major multi-unit project since 1993, technically meets the zoning requirements. But they question whether his plan meets the strict design standards that guide the look and feel of the neighborhood.
The dispute also is tinged by a generational difference in which the players are divided less by age than by outlook.
Zehner is among those who opposed the push last year to have the district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The whole setup just adds another layer of governmental bureaucracy, Zehner said.
“People have no more property rights,” he said. “When I moved to Orange in 1985, Old Towne didn’t exist. It was all voluntary. Then you had all these yuppies move in and restore their houses, looking for a killing on the market. What they’ve done is made us a homeowners association, but the homeowners don’t have any say in it. . . . It’s called gangplanking. They have theirs and to heck with everybody else.”
Many others supported the four-year effort to win the National Register listing, making Old Towne the largest designated historic district in California, according to the State Historic Resources Commission.
The listing of the district, with its turn-of-the century-era Queen Anne, Victorian and Craftsman homes, has become the preservationists most lethal defense.
“The houses themselves might not be distinctive if you compare them to others around the nation, but the district as a whole is what makes it special,” said Tucker, who worked on the listing application. “We have almost the original township here. If you do anything that could negatively affect the whole township, it doesn’t matter if it’s the most beautiful home. It has to do with how it impacts the neighborhood and the district as a whole.”
At the time of the 1993 zoning change, the City Council noted that a “spirit of compatibility” with the neighborhood would be an important deciding factor for any project, said John Godlewski, senior planner for the city.
But the council, faced with the controversial issue, declined to define “compatibility.” Development proposals would be judged on a case-by-case basis, it said.
“It all comes down to the Old Towne design standards,” Godlewski said. “It’s not quantifiable. It’s a difficult decision. The council needs to decide the question of compatibility.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
NEIGHBORHOODS/East Culver Avenue
Bounded by: Shaffer Street on the west, Cambridge Street on the east
Population: About 35 households on either side of Culver Street, part of the Old Towne historic district that includes about 1,500 homes and other buildings.
Hot topic: Development within the Old Towne historic district.
