Good-Faith Review Needed

The Los Angeles City Council made the right call last week when it voted to designate Chase Knolls Garden Apartments a historic cultural monument, giving the 1940s-era complex at least a temporary reprieve from demolition.

The designation came over the objection of Legacy Partners, which bought the property in January intending to raze the 260-unit complex and build luxury apartments.

Legacy’s attorney argued that the push for historical designation was just a ruse by tenants wanting to remain in their rent-controlled apartments. The developer hired experts who testified that Chase Knolls was not architecturally significant.

Experts from the Los Angeles Conservancy and the city Cultural Heritage Commission disagreed. So did the 100 or more supporters who attended the council hearing, many of whom said they want to see Chase Knolls preserved even if they can’t continue living there.

Legacy Partners needs to accept the public support behind saving this piece of the San Fernando Valley’s past and make a good-faith effort to reexamine its options.

One of the misconceptions people have about monument designation is that it prohibits demolition. It does not. But the city’s designation does set into motion a process to review and reconsider the plan. A proposal to tear down a historical resource requires an environmental impact report, which can take six months to a year to prepare. The report must analyze a range of alternatives, from full rehabilitation to partial demolishment with some rehabilitation. Could Legacy build larger apartments, for example, while maintaining the graceful garden setting of lawns and trees? Would any of these options pencil out economically and earn a reasonable rate of return?

Extensive renovations could force out tenants at least temporarily, and increased rent, for good, a sad irony given that Chase Knolls was originally built with the working class in mind--and given the present working-class tenants’ obvious devotion to their homes and community. But renovating rather than razing Chase Knolls could preserve the Modernist lines and park-like setting that gives this garden-style complex a sense of place, of community, that is too often lacking in the Valley’s faceless sprawl.

In the end, the report is just an advisory document. So the trick will be getting all sides to approach the study and examine the options with open minds, a particular challenge given the enmity that has grown up between the developer and the tenants and their supporters. The beauty of the historic cultural designation is that it at least obligates the city--and the developer--to try.