PPCC Under Pressure to Investigate Rule-Breaking Contractors

By JOHN HARLOW Editor-in-Chief

Are builders in Pacific Palisades “falsifying” permits and bending community plan guidelines in their rush to complete new houses?

And is the Pacific Palisades Community Council, and its newly hatched offspring, the Land Use Committee, minded or forceful enough to stop such rogue builders in their muddy tracks?

These questions dominated the last meeting of the two bodies on Thursday, Sept. 28, with uncertain results.

The issue was raised at LUC by Joe Helper, a former parks administrator who suggested they redraft rules to give themselves a wider brief to tackle ever-morphing building issues.

Later that evening, Janet Turner, U.S. Congressman Ted Lieu’s Palisadian representative—but speaking as a Marquez Knolls resident—said locals had stopped four builders who were bending rules to their advantage. But, she said, they needed more help from the city, PPCC and LUC.

The heat was turned up by Sarah Conner, chair of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association, which is credited with blocking past planning atrocities in The Bluffs. She focused on one builder on Lachman Lane, accusing him of falsifying permit building applications.

The contractor at 656 Lachman has since resubmitted his application, but PPRA believes there are too many similar “paperwork misunderstandings” happening across the town. It is seeking to ensure that the city consistently applies a series of rules, including local zoning ordinances, the community plan and the California Coastal Act. Critics warn that some such rules conflict—or at least confuse each other—and if monitoring the current flood of permits appears beyond city planners, then certainly it’s a challenge for PPCC volunteers to undertake such detailed scrutiny.

Rick Mills, PPCC community representative, said that it was such a widespread problem that the PPCC should write to the city urging planners to take it seriously. Yet some of the more controversial projects are legally watertight.

Last week an objector to a cluster of mansions near Potrero Canyon had his paperwork described by the California Coastal Commission as “patently frivolous”—although he is still fighting the project.

As are opponents, known as Highlanders United for Good, resisting a senior living project in The Highlands, who showed up in force at the PPCC (although new data suggests there is a demand, as there are now more people aged over 80 than between 20 and 35 in town).

Maryam Zar, PPCC chair, urged residents to share their evidence of rogue building with the council, so they can pass it onto the city. But that may be the council’s limit: As Chris Spitz, PPCC chair emeritus, said: “There is a threshold of legal proof necessary here—what can we prove?”