By Monday’s deadline, Mehr and Vickey Beglari had not vacated their house in Rustic Canyon, nor had they demolished their residence at the corner of Greentree and Brooktree Road, as they were originally ordered to do by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. The January 5 order to comply came after a five-year battle between the Beglaris and five of their neighbors, who took the case all the way to the California Court of Appeal, which affirmed the neighbors’ civil suit against both the homeowners and the City of L.A. However, Building and Safety rescinded the order on February 7, to the surprise of the plaintiffs, who are now considering further legal action. “The city appears to be making exactly the same mistake it made before in dealing with the Beglaris,” said attorney John Rosenfeld. “We are confident this new action will not stand up in court.” The Beglaris had obtained a building permit in January 2001 to build a 6,550-sq.-ft., two-story addition to their existing 2,000-sq.-ft. ranch-style house at 909 Greentree Rd. Their problem began in April of that year when they started excavating the front of their 10,000-sq.-ft. lot to build an underground garage. The neighbors thought the Beglaris were digging too close to the curb and suspected that the setback was not in accordance with the municipal code. In October 2002, Associate Zoning Administrator Lourdes Green concluded that not only did the setback violate code but that Building and Safety had erred in calculating the “prevailing” front-yard setback for the Beglari house’which was measured from the Beglaris’ next-door neighbor’s detached garage to the curb, instead of from the neighbor’s house to the curb, as required by law. Even though the Beglari residence was found to be 14 feet closer to the street (Greentree) than permitted by the zoning code, the City Planning Commission overruled Green in February 2003. The legal wrangling on both sides finally ended last spring, with the Court of Appeal ordering Building and Safety to revoke all permits issued to the Beglaris, as well as their 2002 certificate of occupancy. The neighbors were elated until they discovered earlier this month that Building and Safety had not only rescinded the order but reinstated the Beglaris’ building permits “to reflect the revised front-yard prevailing setback based on the current circumstances.” Even more startling was the revelation that the “revised” setback that allowed for the reinstatement had nothing to do with the Beglaris’ residence at 909 Greentree’the subject of the protracted dispute’but from a property the couple owns at 921 Greentree, two doors down the street. There, the couple built a five-foot addition to the front of the three-bedroom, two-bath ranch-style house which they purchased in 2004. The addition’which is attached to the chimney and consists of a sloped composite roof supported by two wood pillars (four-by-fours)’not only serves the purpose of decreasing the house’s setback from the street, but in doing so alters the “prevailing” setback for the entire block’which consists of four residences. According to Section 12.07 of the zoning code, “prevailing” setbacks are calculated by taking the property the shortest distance from the street (which, in this case, is an attached carport at 925 Greentree that is 9’11” from the curb), adding the setbacks of any properties within 10 feet, then averaging them out. However, since there is only one property within 10 feet of 925, only the setback for 921 (which is 17’5″, as measured from the edge of the Beglaris’ new addition to the curb) was used in calculating the new “prevailing” setback, which Building and Safety concluded to be 13’3″‘approximately six inches less than the once unacceptable setback of 13’9″ for 909 Greentree, instantly rendering it compliant. “The addition at 921 Greentree is built to code and even though it extends out five feet beyond the house, there is still enough distance between the addition and the curb to comply with the required front-yard setback for this property,” Building and Safety spokesman Bob Steinbach told the Palisadian-Post on Tuesday. Section 12.03 of the zoning code allows for any structure that has a roof and is supported by columns or walls to be used as an enclosure for animals or personal property. The code further states that because the addition is a legal extension of the house, the setback is no longer measured from the chimney to the curb, but from the new addition to the curb. What surprised plaintiff Rosenfeld about the latest Building and Safety ruling is “how the city now appears to have inappropriately altered one setback to try and justify what is their obvious blunder on another. Both measurements are flawed, as far as we’re concerned. That’s what caused the problem in the first place. What if everyone wanted to put their house closer to the street, like the Beglaris? What happens to setbacks then?” (Editor’s note: Contacted on Tuesday evening, Vickey Beglari said she had no comment on the Building and Safety ruling, and Mehr Beglari did not return our call by the time we went to press Wednesday.)
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