Maybe you have heard about the proposed development of 4 large houses at 2245 - 2265 Live Oak East between Black Oak and Red Oak. You might even have read about it on this site. The interview below is intended to serve two purposes. The first one is to inform you about the permit process as it is unfolding. And the second purpose is to convey the Oaks HOA board's position on the matter to everyone in the Oaks.

Taking part were our president, Gerry Hans, and longtime Oaks resident Bob Young, a new board member whose mission is to tackle critical zoning questions that confront our neighborhood. As well, architect and Oaks neighbor Wayne Schlock was part of the conversation. Wayne is with the Oaks Alliance, a group outside of the Oaks HOA, and probably the one who is most familiar with the situation on Live Oak Drive East. The interview was conducted by board member Rainer Standke via email over the course of several weeks from late February to mid-March.

Wayne, can you to tell us about the Oaks Alliance?

Wayne: The Oaks Alliance is an unincorporated group of neighbors who came together in an effort to protect their neighborhood, and specifically oppose the construction of 4 very large houses on Live Oak Drive East. Our group is made up of neighbors who live in the general vicinity of the proposed Live Oak East project and people in the Oaks who are genuinely concerned with the issue of incompatible development.

Why do you oppose this development?

Wayne: I am personally not against development, but I am not for incompatible development. There are cases of projects in the works in the Oaks with no opposition. It is all about creating projects that are compatible to their surroundings. No one can tell me that cutting down all of the trees on a beautiful hillside, scooping out all of the hillside, and then building 4 very large houses is compatible development, improving the neighborhood, or anyone's quality of life. Especially when you consider the approximately 2 years of construction and over 4000 truck trips just to haul out the excavated earth!

Gerry: The potential Live Oak East development, along with a few others that are in progress or have already slipped through, serves as a rude awakening. Our residents are learning, through the actions of the Oaks Alliance, that we can stand up to preserve the character of the Oaks. This type of protest warns our City leaders that something needs to be done on a more permanent basis. There may not be many more vacant lots to build on in the Oaks, but now we are also seeing quite a few complete "tear-downs". If maximizing square footage is a builder's sole goal, we will see degradation in the compatibility of these homes to the rest of the neighborhood; some homes will simply be conspicuously out-of-place when you look down your street.

What is the history of these lots? Why didn't anybody build there in the past, and why do people want to do it now?

Wayne: The property, like nearly all of the Oaks, was subdivided in the late 20's. From the 70's until a year ago it was owned by one person. Approximately 1 year ago the property changed hands and was purchased by brother/ sister team who plan on developing all 4 lots with large single-family homes.

Bob: For the first sixty years of The Oaks it was natural that homebuilders focused on lots that could be easily and rationally developed -- those with easy contours, gentle slopes or large flat pads. Those lots made the most sense as home sites and they were largely all spoken for by the 1970's. Then, for a certain period, stilt houses were built on steeper lots. Today they are outlawed.

The enormous spike in housing prices since 1995 has led to a situation where the money to be made is irresistible and so speculators have simply come up with a new tactic. They buy a heretofore unbuildable, extremely steep lot, remove the entire hillside, create a flat pad with retaining walls, build a 6000 square foot house with six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, put it on the market for several million dollars and hope to sell it to a greater fool. And that strategy has worked.

The problem in all this is that most of the lots in The Oaks are small -- one quarter or one fifth of an acre. But the housing market wants large houses -- 4,000 to 7,000 square feet. The developers are merely acceding to the demands of housing investors who are seeking large houses located in The Oaks, a prime neighborhood. The fact that the neighborhood wasn't designed with the right size lots for this sort of large house doesn't matter.

The developers are not generally residents of the neighborhood and therefore may not care whether what they're doing in building these outsized houses will result in a permanent disfigurement of the neighborhood. They are looking to make a buck and move on to the next project in Sherman Oaks or Pasadena or Culver City. We are the ones who will continue to live with what they have put here. We are the ones who have the most at stake in this.

Gerry: What's interesting is that Councilmember Tom LaBonge said in his February 24 weekly newsletter, "As I have come to know, with modern engineering techniques, there is no such thing as an un-buildable lot." So now Tom needs to take his revelation and act upon it.

How about zoning codes? There must be some limitation as to how big a house you can build on a small lot.

Wayne: The Zoning on nearly all of the vacant lots in the Oaks is essentially meaningless due a huge exception in the Zoning code. The Zoning code specifies minimum lot sizes, setbacks, etc., however, since the Oaks is classified as a "Hillside Area", and all of the lots were subdivided in the 20's all of the nonconforming lots are grandfathered. The Oak tree ordinance for us is also meaningless. Most people believe that Oak trees are protected by the City of Los Angeles Oak Tree Ordinance, but that ordinance only applies to "Lots" of more than 1 acre. 98% of all "lots" in the Oaks are less than 1 acre.

Gerry: In the middle of this interview, the City's "Oak Tree Ordinance" has been significantly upgraded. When it goes into effect in a few weeks, Southern California Black Walnuts will be included in the new revised "Protected Tree Ordinance". This hillside is loaded with both Oaks and Black Walnuts. The new ordinance also eliminates the minimum lot size of one acre, which before made the ordinance laughable for most residential development protection. California Bay and Western Sycamores are now covered, too, along with the Walnuts and three species of native Oaks. The trunk size drops to 4 inches from the previous 8 inches. Violators of the new ordinance can face serious fines and jail-time. It is important to understand that the Protected Tree Ordinance does not say you can never remove these trees. It says that you must respect the trees by acknowledging them to the City when there is a reason for removing them.

Maybe I'm off the track, because the developer of this property is probably grandfathered with the old ordinance. We'll have to see.

What do we know about the new owners and their intentions?

Gerry: As I understand it, very little communication with the developer has been accomplished by either the "Oaks Alliance" or their attorney. There was no desire on the part of the developer to talk. This is a shame. The Oaks Homeowners Association would love to reach out to any potential developer. It's important that they understand the rich heritage of the neighborhood, including the extent by which our area is defined environmentally by being adjacent to the largest urban park in the country.

Wayne: The developer proposes three houses of close to 5,000 sq ft each and one home of more than 7,000 sq ft. We have pieced this information together from various sources, among them the developer's Plan Check application with the city, which is a public record. However, we have not seen the actual drawings. To help people visualize the proposed development I have taken a plan of the properties from the county assessors website and traced it on the computer. It should be accurate within a couple of inches. I have then projected the proposed houses' footprints, based directly on information from the developer's application - they filled out the application themselves. It is true that we don't know the exact plans for the houses, but we do know the overall dimensions. So, this should give a fair representation of the lot sizes relative to the buildings' footprint sizes:

 

It is the stated intention of the developer to "make the site new", and in the process cut down all of the trees on the site and excavate massive amounts of the hillside. They have not approached any of the neighbors in an attempt to work with the neighboring residents. Recently, there has been some communication with the developer, however it seems that both sides are far apart on a reasonable compromise.

How far has the building permit process progressed already?

Wayne: The developer submitted drawings to the Building Department (LADBS) for plan check last March. Last August the LADBS issued their corrections to the developer's plans. The corrected drawings have not been resubmitted for approval at this time. We know this from looking at the Property Activity Report on the LABDS website at http://ladbs.org/. In addition, we are told that the Planning Department will require variances, since the proposed retaining walls do not conform to the current code. Meanwhile, despite the developer's lack of approved building plans and approved grading plans for the site, they have applied for an approval to haul over 15,000 cubic yards of earth out of the site.

At the same time, the Oaks Alliance has engaged an attorney specializing in environmental law, and has filed an extensive report insisting that the environmental reviews required by state law (California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA) be implemented. LADBS agreed and the hearing for hauling the earth has been postponed until the Los Angeles Department of City Planning can complete an environmental review of the project. The project may require a full Environmental Impact Report, or we are told, the Planning Department will more likely require a "Mitigated Negative Declaration." If that comes to pass, we may want to challenge the Mitigated Negative Declaration. If the project is not redesigned, there will also be a public hearing for the variances for the developer's nonconforming retaining walls.

Gerry: The environmental review might take into account the fact that the property is, biologically speaking, a mature Oak-Walnut woodland community. How can you mitigate that with four large houses on it?

The environmental review is not solely about protection of trees and flora. There are questions about geology, runoff, and the narrow street. CEQA says that you must consider the "whole project", not act on each factor separately. This is important. The way I see it, if multiple aspects of the project are not mitigatable, then the project may not be advisable.

Why is it important for the Oaks residents to be involved?

Wayne: The City of Los Angeles makes money from the fees it charges to developers, whose projects in turn increase the tax revenue of the city. The City government, as you can imagine is very pro development, often times overlooking the negative effects of development. If neighborhoods are not organized, and provide effective oversight, the negative effects will be overlooked, developers will be less than truthful on their applications, and the city will be less than forthcoming with clear information as was the case on Live Oak. The required “Notice of Proposed Construction” that was posted in March of 2005 on the property said that a “+500 SFD w/ att. Garage” was proposed for the site. SFD stands for Single Family Dwelling. That is clearly not the full truth. On the Haul Route Application the developers state that there are no native trees on the lots, but their geologist's report does list them. This would have fallen through the cracks, if it were not for the efforts of the Oaks Alliance.

Gerry has actually taken some photos of the trees on those four lots, and they are available for viewing here.

Wayne: In cases where there are no protected trees involved, or when there is no hauling permit needed, there is very little that can be done to prevent some of the incompatible development that is occurring in the Oaks, and Tom La Bonge's office has gone on record as not wanting to get involved in individual battles.

Bob: There is nothing illegal about what the developers are doing, but that doesn't make it right. And it doesn’t make it good for our neighborhood. The developers have no stake in the neighborhood; they're not bothered by the constant noise of construction and trucks; and they don't have to live here in the aftermath of a building boom that is truly changing the character of The Oaks. If hundreds of trees go away, if large houses are crammed in wall to wall in lots never intended for them, if once beautiful hillsides are carted away in thousands of trucks, it doesn't matter at all to developers.

We can hardly expect the developers to police themselves, to build responsibly, to consider what sort of house will fit in best with the houses around it. They want to build quickly, sell quickly, pocket the money and get out. That's why it's crucial that the residents of The Oaks -- those of us who care what this neighborhood looks like ten years from now and fifty years from now -- make it known to the city how they feel about the rampant development here. The City itself doesn't have the time or the manpower to police the developers. If we don't do it, no one will.

Wayne: There is a growing movement of residents in the Oaks pushing for an "Oaks Specific Plan." Several local neighborhoods such as Hollywoodland and the Mullholland Area have specific plans that were written to insure compatible development in their neighborhoods. The plan would be written with intensive neighborhood involvement, and be implemented by the Planning Department and elected neighborhood representatives. It would not be intended to take away anyone's right to build, or dictate an architectural style, but it would provide a clear roadmap on how to build. A Specific Plan would mean clear criteria for everyone that are tailored specifically to the needs of the Oaks. Everyone could participate in a public process of writing the plan, which would avoid the multiple legal fights which are now brewing.

Gerry: I am happy to announce that our current endeavor to gain some control over incompatible development in the Oaks may soon yield some results. In a meeting with the Planning Department this week, the idea of an "Interim Control Ordinance" was floated. The specifics are not yet detailed, but this is an action that might be granted within a matter of a few months. This would buy time for our community, coordinating with Planning Department and Council District 4, to enact a more permanent solution. Some type of anti-mansionization agenda could be implemented in an extended Hollywood Community Plan, our own Specific Plan, or through a Historic Protection Overlay Zone.

The involvement of every resident in this process for putting our community on the right track is extremely important. And I'd like to encourage people out there to support the Oaks Alliance group however they can.

How would one go about that, Wayne?

Wayne: If anyone would like to become involved or donate funds please contact me at bluepointarch@aol.com.

Bob: Adding to Gerry’s comments… the Interim Control Ordinance is a regulation through which we might be able to restrict the building of oversized houses for a one year period (and a one year extension). The benefit is that the two years of breathing space provided by such an ordinance would allow us to formulate more thoughtfully considered zoning requirements. The other option that might be open to us is to take advantage of the rewriting of the Hollywood Community Plan. This plan – reconsidered every twenty years (it was last revised in 1986 and so due to be again considered this year) could include some new restrictions on oversized houses in hillside areas. Our council office seems to think this is a possibility. These are all hopeful prospects. And we need to do everything in our power to see that something is done to stem the tide of overdevelopment. This is a crucial moment in the history of our neighborhood. What we do now will decide what kind of neighborhood we have for the next one hundred years, because that’s how long the houses being built now will last. We will be calling on everyone in the Oaks to help us push for regulations to insure compatible development in The Oaks. Stay tuned.

[Please also see a related story on the Oaks' proposal for an Interim Control Ordinance]