Local residents involved in a legal dispute over a Rustic Canyon home felt justice was finally served last month when the California Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment in their civil suit against homeowners Mehr and Vickey Beglari and the City of Los Angeles. Now, the City of L.A. will be directed to revoke the permits issued to the Beglaris for the completed addition to their home at 909 Greentree, on the corner of Brooktree Road. The existing property is 14 feet closer to the street (Greentree) than permitted by the governing sections of the Los Angeles Municipal Code. Yet the five plaintiffs, who all live nearby, are still wondering why the City, including the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, the Planning Commission, the City Attorney’s Office and City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, didn’t respond to their complaints, beginning in 2001 to date. Neither Deputy City Attorney Michael Klekner nor Miscikowski returned phone calls to the Palisadian-Post. The plaintiffs are attorney Ronald Oster and his wife Superior Court Judge Diana Wheatley; attorney John Rosenfeld; and Superior Court Judge David Horwitz and his wife Jacki, a professor/journalist. (Jacki Horwitz is a Palisadian-Post columnist, but not an employee.) These neighbors have waged a four-year battle with the Beglaris and the City over construction of the house, which began in April 2001 when the couple started excavating the front of their 10,000-sq.-ft. lot to build an underground garage. The plaintiffs thought the Beglaris were digging too close to the curb and that the setback was not in keeping with those of nearby homes. They began contacting their Council office and Building and Safety by telephone and letters to learn how the expansion had been authorized. The Beglaris had obtained a permit in January 2001 from Building and Safety that authorized the construction of a 6,550-sq.-ft., two-story addition to their existing 2,000-sq.-ft. ranch-style house. Sometime around August 2001, when Building and Safety discovered that the Beglaris were in violation of the City’s Hillside Ordinance, which imposes special conditions on construction in an area like Rustic Canyon (regarding height restrictions, lot coverage restrictions, increased off-parking requirements, and fire and sprinkler requirements), it issued specific orders mandating that the addition be brought into compliance. The City gave the Beglaris the option of reducing the height of their house or raising the site by backfilling a driveway; they chose the latter option. A permit issued to the Beglaris in November 2001 authorized the movement of a side wall, and a permit issued in March 2002 allowed for an increase in the height of the driveway so the roofline of the addition would not exceed height limits measured from ground level. The plaintiffs then challenged the permits issued to the Beglaris in a series of administrative appeals, first to the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners (BBSC) in March 2002. Specifically, they claimed ‘1.) the height of Beglari’s proposed addition was excessive, 2.) the proposed addition would impermissibly reduce the front-yard setback because the prevailing front-yard setback had been incorrectly measured by Beglari, and 3.) the enlarged residence would impermissibly reduce the size of the required side yards,’ according to the Court of Appeal opinion filed last month. While the appeal to the BBSC was pending, the plaintiffs sued the City and the Beglaris ‘for declaratory and injunctive relief, asking the court to compel the City to revoke Beglari’s building permits and to issue a stop work order.’ The case was transferred from the Los Angeles County Superior Court to the Orange County Superior Court to avoid any conflict of interest, since two of the plaintiffs are Superior Court judges in L.A. However, the City refused to issue a preliminary injunction because the plaintiffs had not exhausted their ‘administrative remedies.’ Meanwhile, the BBSC rejected the plaintiffs’ challenges to Building and Safety’s determinations concerning construction of the home and, on August 19, 2002, Building and Safety issued a certificate of occupancy to Beglari. Despite further appeals to the Director of City Planning and the City Planning Commission, the only ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor came in October 2002 when Associate Zoning Administrator Lourdes Green, acting on behalf of the Director of City Planning, found that Building and Safety had not calculated the prevailing front-yard setback in accordance with the zoning code. The setback had been erroneously 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 (a detached garage is not considered part of a house). According to Green, had the setback been properly calculated, the Beglari house would have had to be set back an additional 14 feet from Greentree Road. Plaintiff Rosenfeld, who grew up three doors down from what is now the Beglari residence, describes the zoning code in the Greentree Rd. area of Rustic Canyon as ‘the sole defense against overbuilding on lots. The zoning code is like a contract that everybody lives by and expects everybody else to live by.’ The Beglaris appealed to the City Planning Commission and in February 2003, a final determination rejected Lourdes Green’s decision and ruled in favor of the Beglaris on the setback issue. A month later, the plaintiffs filed an amended pleading to their lawsuit and, having exhausted their administrative remedies, got a court ruling. The September 11, 2003 ruling by Judge David C. Velasquez in Santa Ana found that ‘the city prejudicially abused its discretion in that it has not proceeded in a manner required by law. The city’s use of the ‘in-line’ theory of calculating prevailing front yard setback is not supported by any reasonable interpretation of the Los Angeles Municipal Code.’ The trial court ordered the City to revoke the three permits issued to the Beglaris. In an interview that month with the Palisadian-Post, Deputy City Attorney Klekner said he did not think the case would be resolved amicably. He was right. The City and the Beglaris appealed, and the cause was argued and submitted to the California Court of Appeal on November 17, 2004. ‘There was no consensus among the panel,’ Klekner told the Post just hours after the appeal was argued. ‘But this is a pretty quick panel.’ The three participants’judges Miriam A. Vogel, Vaino Spencer and Richard D. Aldrich’had 90 days to issue an opinion. On December 15, the initial judgment was affirmed unanimously in an opinion that read: ‘The City (joined by Beglari) contends the trial court exceeded its authority when it ordered the City to revoke the three permits issued to Belgari. The City’s argument misses the point’that (as Zoning Administrator and the trial court both found) there is no discretion involved in the application of the formula to the measurements at issue in this case.’ In an interview Monday, Bob Steinbach of the Department of Building and Safety, told the Post, ‘If a judge made a ruling, we have no choice but to go with ruling. We would have to issue orders [to the owner] to comply [with the ruling].’ The permits and certificate of occupancy originally issued to the Beglaris by Building and Safety will thereby be revoked unless the Beglaris appeal to the California Supreme Court or are able to obtain a variance. ‘I’d be very surprised if the Supreme Court has an interest in taking this case,’ said plaintiff Rosenfeld, who sold his family’s home at 848 Greentree last year. He now lives in Topanga. Rosenfeld also said that there is ‘nothing about the [Beglari] property that will warrant a variance.’ However, he admits that ‘it will not surprise me if the City makes findings and grants him a variance,’ which ‘we [the plaintiffs] will immediately challenge in court.’ The conclusion of the Court of Appeal opinion states: ‘While we agree that the proper calculations have to be made, we do not see any basis in law, fact, or fairness to allow the City or Beglari to keep the improperly issued permits in place so that they can become the foundation for the decisions that will thereafer have to be made…Under these circumstances, there is only one more thing to be said’that it is time for the City to amend the relevant portions of the Municipal Code.’ Asked if the opinion is groundbreaking in its affirmation of the initial judgment against the City of Los Angeles, Rosenfeld said, ‘If it’s making history, it’s a sad thing.’ Then, speaking for the plaintiffs, he added, ‘We were gratified. It pays to take into account the consideration that your neighbors raise.’ Despite repeated attempts to contact the Beglaris, they could not be reached for comment.
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