Cambridge Road house project halted after unpermitted work frustrates commissioners
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Plans for a house on La Cañada Flintridge’s Cambridge Road — which grew by 1,100 square feet and from three stories to four largely without city approval — were halted last week by frustrated members of the Planning Commission.
Plans for a 6,600-square-foot two-story home and partially subterranean basement at 4170 Cambridge Road submitted by homeowner Henrik Sargsyan were first approved in April 2014 by commissioners, who granted a hillside development permit, second-floor review and setback modification.
A separate hillside permit was approved in 2016 to allow for tiered retaining walls up to 3 feet, within the city’s standards.
But when construction began in 2017, grading activity on the steep slope exceeded the homeowners’ allowance. Several protected oak trees were affected, and one was illegally removed. The city issued several stop-work orders, collected a fine for the felled tree and saw that the grading near the other trees was remediated.
An amendment made in 2018 allowed for a 750-square-foot covered patio at the rear of the property, which would include a pool and deck area to the south. Requests to expand a lower-level patio and pool deck were rejected as “excessive” for the hillside lot.
With the property flagged for code violations and under another stop-work order, Sargsyan recently sought an additional amendment to allow the lower-level patio to be expanded 98 square feet and extend the basement another 421 feet to include a game room.
Much of the work had already been started without the permits in place.
Commissioners heard the matter at their regular meeting on Thursday, Jan. 23 . Planning staff recommended partial approval of the changes but with severe conditions about mitigating massing.
Several upset neighbors claimed the years-long project was not only an eyesore, but an exploitation of the city’s planning guidelines.
David Thein, whose property faces Sargsyan’s to the south, said he supported his neighbor’s 2014 plans and wrote a letter supporting the project to city officials.
“The problem is, what he showed me is not what he submitted,” Thein said, recommending the city order the demolition of unpermitted building.
“You have to set an example,” he continued. “If anybody can do what he’s doing, it sends a message to the rest of the community.”
Unpermitted changes on the property include a redesigned and expanded patio, an east-side staircase and an exposed alcove under the patio that effectively turns the two-story house and partially exposed basement into a three-story house and basement.
Commissioners and neighbors agreed that the project looks like a four-story mass from one vantage point.
City staffer Chris Gjolme said counting the alcove toward the total height of the building brought the total height of the project to about 46 feet, well over the 32 feet allowed by the city in non-hillside areas.
To alleviate the effect of the massing, he said, planners recommended the lower portion of the south-facing exterior be obscured by a series of retaining walls and tree plantings along the slope.
“We have developed and designed a very aggressive tiered retaining wall system that would flank that lower level,” Gjolme said.
Sargsyan told commissioners he shifted the entire house 3 feet south at the request of the Fire Department, an alteration that severely changed the grading.
“I can’t put a 3-foot wall there if I have an 8-foot gap between the ground and my patio,” he said. “If the neighbors don’t like us and they don’t like our house, it’s not our problem. We followed all the city laws — please help us move forward with this project.”
Commissioners, however, said the project was too altered for them to make the necessary findings.
“I would sincerely suggest … you go forward and hire a proper landscape architect, engineer and grading contractor and present the plan in its finality,” said Commissioner Samir Mehrotra.
“We need some clarification on where we are today [with the project] and what we need to do to make it what we agreed on way back then,” Chair Mike Hazin agreed.