The missing link
Paul Clinton
MAGNOLIA PARK -- Carolyn Carter couldn’t keep the developers off her
property forever.
Carter’s resistance to the 243-unit Parc Pointe Apartment Complex
officially ended Tuesday, when the City Council approved the construction
of 12 more units on theland where her small house now stands.
Surrounded on three sides by the sprawling, three-story Parc Pointe,
Carter lived in the house at 632 N. Hollywood Way until her death in
February 1998. Shortly afterward, her nephew, John Carter, agreed to sell
his aunt’s property to Multi-Family Partners, who built the complex more
than a decade ago.
Carter said his aunt wouldn’t have minded the sale because her
opposition to the development was based only her desire to live in the
home. In her last years, before her death at age 92, Multi-Family took
care of the gardening and even painted Carter’s house.
“They were really good to her,” John Carter said. “She said she always
felt a little guilty for not selling to them.”
Carter said his aunt bought the pre-war home in 1941 for $3,500. At the time, she fretted about her $31 monthly mortgage payments, he said.
Neither Carter nor Multi-Family would disclose the purchase price of the
home.
By approving the $1.2 million addition to the complex Tuesday, the
current council finished what an earlier one started.
“It’s like a missing piece of the puzzle,” Councilman Bob Kramer said.
But Burbank has changed since the late 1980s, when the project was
approved by Mayor Michael Hastings and others.
With the passage of 1989’s measure one, a proposition that capped the
number of new apartment units that can be built in the city, large
complexes like Parc Pointe have become a thing of the past in the city.
“That was one of the last major complexes,” former Councilman Ted
McConkey said. “But it was always an anomaly because of that woman’s
house.”
Councilman Dave Golonski, who cast the lone dissenting vote Tuesday,
said he could not justify approving 12 more units for the complex.
“I’m not going to support this tonight,” Golonski said. “I think the
density we’re looking at here is bordering on scandalous.”
Parc Pointe has never been short on tenants. Developer Steve Botsford
said the complex has consistently registered a 98% occupancy rate since
its 1989 opening. Botsford said he would have little difficulty renting
the additional apartments.
“We were very pleased that the council saw fit to complete the
project,” Botsford said.
Carolyn Carter’s house will be torn down but her last stand is likely
to be remembered. Wedged in and dwarfed by the apartment complex, the
home became a neighborhood curiosity. A former ballet dancer who worked
as a bookkeeper for Safeway until her 1972 retirement, Carter lived in
the house for more than 50 years.
When the developers came to her door, she stubbornly turned them down.
“She was in her 80s,” John Carter said.”She wasn’t going to move.”