Two Northwest Glendale Homeowners Association members questioned city staff’s enforcement of Design Review conditions for 503 Kenneth Road at last night’s city council meeting.
Construction work at the northwest corner of Pacific Avenue and Kenneth Road has stopped and started several times. After more than a year, the project is still unfinished. Recent framing work has upset neighbors, who see outlines of a final design incompatible with the neighborhood.
Homeowners’ association board member Tammi Relyea looked into the history of the project, reviewing Design Review Board minutes and meeting videos, plan documents, and staff reports. She told the city council that “there appear to be some inconsistencies from the very beginning” of the project.
According to Relyea, original plans were submitted in March 2008 and included no changes to the exterior of the project. Documents and hearings don’t reveal what transpired to change those original plans to what eventually came before the Design Review Board.
At its first Design Review Board hearing, the project was returned for redesign with nine significant conditions. Staff labeled it a “modest addition” even though it included a complete redesign of the house from a Colonial to Mediterranean style. At the second meeting, with staff still calling the project a “modest addition,” board members comments reflect considerable concern. The project was barely approved by a majority with ten more signficant conditions. One board member asked, “Are we now going to back down because we don’t want to deny it?” Since then the city has issued two stop work orders, both in February 2009.
Director of Planning Hassan Haghani responded to Relyea’s concerns, asserting that city staff are monitoring the project quite closely. Tammi Relyea and homeowners’ association board member Lawrence Kalfayan both complained that staff refusing to sign off on the project after completion will lead to de facto approval of the case should it be contested, considering the ambiguities of the case, conditional approvals, and uneven enforcement from the start.
The question for neighbors, and for residents of other neighborhoods, is: Should the city allow any work to proceed without a final approved plan? Who is monitoring ongoing compliance with the city’s conditions?
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this year we had a home renovation. sometimes home renovation is quite costly.-~;