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View Winners → Arcadia Council Puts Zoning Revamp on Hold; Exempts Highlands from Historical Preservation
Arcadia Weekly May 06, 2015
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Elkins Avenue in the Arcadia Highlands being graded for development in the early Fifties. – Courtesy Photo
By Joe Taglieri
Officials postponed efforts to restructure zoning regulations and exempted the Arcadia Highlands neighborhood from a forthcoming historical preservation ordinance due to an ongoing lawsuit Highlands residents filed against the City Council, the city attorney announced Tuesday.
The lawsuit, filed in March by a group called Save the Arcadia Highlands, seeks to force the council to rescind its approval of two construction projects that would replace existing homes built in the mid-20th century with significantly larger dwellings.
Last month the parties didn’t come to a settlement agreement, and both sides have pledged to see the lawsuit through in court.
“Until now the city of Arcadia, at the direction of the city council, was actively working with zoning and land use consultants to prepare a proposed update of the city’s zoning code for presentation to the public at community meetings and then to the city council for possible adoption later this calendar year,” said City Attorney Stephen Deitsch.
The council is additionally considering a proposed historical preservation ordinance, and the city has selected a preservation consultant, Deitsch reported. Also at the council’s behest staff members established a committee of residents to address issues facing single-family neighborhoods and provide policy recommendations.
“Due to the filing of this litigation against the city by … Save the Arcadia Highlands and the resulting need to obtain a determination by the court of issues that affect the zoning code update, the city council has determined by a 3-2 vote that the city must place the zoning code update project and neighborhood impacts community meetings in abeyance until the litigation filed against the city … is resolved,” Deitsch said.
-Photo by Terry Miller
The city attorney further reported that the council decided via another 3-2 vote also in closed session, which is a meeting not open to the public, to go ahead with establishing historical preservation guidelines and exempt the Highlands Homeowners Association territory from the forthcoming ordinance.
“The city council considers this to be an unfortunate delay in presentation of these projects due to this litigation as well as the staff time and related costs to the taxpayers resulting from this litigation,” Deitsch concluded.
Council members Tom Beck and ShoTay and Mayor Gary Kovacic voted to move forward with historical preservation excluding the Highlands, while Mayor Pro Tem Roger Chandler and Council Member John Wuo opted against the motion, City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in an interview. Tay, Wuo, and Chandler voted to shelve the zoning update and neighborhood committee, with Kovacic and Beck dissenting.
“I respect the position of city council … but I’m still very disappointed in what the group has done regarding the lawsuit,” said April Verlato, a member of Save the Arcadia Highlands and the neighborhood’s homeowner association. “It’s basically an admission that you know that there’s something special about the Highlands yet you don’t want to do historic preservation.”
Verlato lives next to a home built in the 1950s and designed by renowned architect John Kenneth Galbraith. Earlier this year the council approved its demolition to make way for the property owner Bowden Development Inc. to build a larger two-story home.
Verlato noted her efforts starting more than a year ago to urge the city to do an impartial historic architecture survey instead of individual commissioned assessments in which a property owner hires an architectural historian, as was the case with the Galbraith home next door.
“That house, I believe, was the first one … that then led to many other houses in the Highlands being built by John Galbraith, and we have a great collection of his houses up there,” she said. “To lose the first one because a group of men don’t want a woman telling them what to do because that’s what it’s starting to sound like, that you guys just cannot stand a woman coming in here and saying ‘This is what needs to be done to preserve the Highlands.'”
She concluded her remarks by rebuking council members for representing developers’ interests despite residents’ opposition.
“The message you guys are sending us is that you just don’t care,” Verlato said.
The zoning update process began last July, and several community meetings were held in which city staff listened to residents’ concerns and policy suggestions.
-Photo by Terry Miller
