City ‘mistake’ prompts lawsuit
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It’s still only a paper road, but an attorney for Dr. Philip Merritt, the La Cañada Flintridge resident who wants to use the city property sketched as Windermere Place for access to Merritt’s private property, is claiming a victory this week in what he sees as a reversal of a previous City Council action to leave the road on paper only.
“What does it mean? It means we won,” Arnold Graham, an attorney with Graham Vaage & Cisneros in Glendale, said Tuesday concerning a letter he received last week from La Cañada’s City Attorney Mark Steres.
Graham filed a $2.1 million lawsuit against the city of La Cañada Flintridge on behalf of his client, Merritt, on April 2, two weeks after a City Council 2-2 — non-decision — vote against Merritt’s request to develop the road for a driveway to his private property.
Mayor Steve Del Guercio recused himself from the vote, due to a conflict of interest, since his law firm previously has represented Merritt on unrelated matters.
The council’s tie vote meant the “status quo” was maintained, City Manager Mark Alexander said at that time. City staff, later, determined that decision meant Merritt’s application had been rejected, and Merritt was “invited to submit a new application with proposed access from Hampstead Road,” the public road along the other side of Meritt’s property.
Merritt and his attorney subsequently filed the lawsuit alleging that the City Council was denying the man access to his property through a public road.
However, following a closed session meeting of the City Council last week, City Attorney Mark Steres drafted a letter to Graham, which states that “the city will accept and continue to process under its regulations, the application submitted by Dr. Merritt with proposed access over Windermere Place ”
That is pretty much what the council told Merritt at the March 17 council meeting. Merritt, at that time, was told to modify his plans to access the property from Hampstead Road, or return to the city’s planning commission with a complete proposal of his plans in the hope that the council would alter its decision at a later date.
In his letter, Steres wrote that a March 19 letter to Merritt from Fred Buss, the city’s senior planner, “erred in its interpretation of the result of the City Council’s action and, therefore was a mistake.”
Steres clarified that the city will continue to process the previous application, if Merritt so decides within 60 days of the letter. Continuing to process the application means the application will be subject to compliance with the state’s Environmental Quality Act, city zoning and building codes, “the same as any application for new construction in the city’s single family hillside areas,” Steres wrote, adding that the process will include “reviewing such matters as house mass, grading, retaining walls, decks, landscaping, access, location, etc.”
And, though “the city will not be making its decision on the application on the basis of access over Windermere Place … the design of such access will be part of the discretionary decisions under the city’s zoning code and hillside development permit criteria.”
Windermere Place is considered an unimproved “paper road,” because it has only been plotted on paper. The 20-foot-wide road and a connecting 10-foot-wide Windermere Trail were dedicated to Los Angeles County in 1925 by developer and Flintridge namesake Frank Flint and became city-owned when the city incorporated in 1976. City staff and some council members agree with Merritt that the road was likely plotted originally to allow access to Merritt’s and other adjoining properties. However, in the years since the street was plotted it was never developed and now involves issues not considered relevant 82 years ago, some council members said during the March 17 discussion.
The boundaries of Windermere Place contain a blue-line stream, which created additional fodder for neighbors opposed to Merritt’s development of the road and is one reason two of the four voting council members opted to leave the road on paper only at this point in time.
A handful of residents showed up at the March 17 council meeting to object to Merritt’s request. The city’s planning commission also received a list of signatures from 20 residents along Inverness Drive and Roanoke Place, who according to the petition, objected to “any utilization of Windermere [Place] off of Inverness [Drive] as a driveway for a proposed home located on Hampstead Road.” The planning commission also received one signature on a petition in support of Merritt’s request.
Graham said that he and his client would drop the lawsuit if the city allows his client to use Windermere Road. “My client just wants to build a house,” he said.
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