Architect Richard Blumenberg, who is president of the Pacific Palisades Civic League, will be speaking at the Pacific Palisades Community Council (PPCC) meeting on Thursday, May 26 about proposed amendments to the city’s residential building codes that could result in what he called a loss of property values.
The Baseline Mansionization Ordinance/Baseline Hillside Ordinance (BMO/BHO) Amendment is aimed at reducing the allowable size of new construction and renovations for single-family homes in Los Angeles.
If adopted, the amendment, which comes in response to what some Angelenos and local politicians are calling out-of-control mansionization, would affect neighborhoods within Pacific Palisades that are not in the Coastal zone. (To find out if your home is in the Coastal zone, visit zimas.lacity.org, type in your address, then click on “Additional.” Next to “Coastal Zone” it will either say “Coastal Zone Commission Authority,” which means the residence is within the coastal zone, or “None,” which means it is not in the coastal zone.)
“Basically this is going to affect overall property values,” said Blumenberg, the founder of RLB Architecture.
The architect explained the amendments are “supposedly to deal with overwhelming houses next door. But we’ve already done this with encroachment planes. There are a lot of civic leagues and homeowners associations that have height envelopes. It’s the height envelopes that protect people.”
Blumenberg has created a “Loss of Value Analysis” that shows how the proposed amendment would affect property values based on lot size. The city’s revised draft of the proposed ordinance amendments can be found at bit.ly/1qMDeNs.
Blumenberg will be speaking about the BMO/BHO amendment at the Thursday, May 26 PPCC meeting in the Community Room at the Palisades Branch Library, 861 Alma Real Dr.
—FRANCES SHARPE
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