Arcadia Officials Explain Council Majority Position on Residential Real Estate

Roger Chandler, Mayor Pro Tem. – Courtesy Photo

Mayor Pro Tem Chandler Defends Stance on Large New Homes

By Joe Taglieri

Amid growing controversy over residential real estate development, high-ranking Arcadia officials discussed the City Council’s prevailing view on the hot-button issue.

Throughout the year council meetings have gotten extremely tense and at times downright nasty as opposing camps air out their frustrations during the twice-monthly open sessions at Arcadia City Hall.

A number of council decisions on residential development projects have squeaked through with a narrow 3-2 majority siding with developers and property owners who seek to maximize their land investments by demolishing existing homes and replacing them with new structures that are often more than twice the size.

Arguably the council’s most outspoken defender of stakeholders’ right to build on their land as they see fit, Mayor Pro Tem Roger Chandler has been a lightning rod for criticism from a growing contingent of homeowners who are none too pleased with the mansionization trend that has steadily increased in Arcadia in recent years.

In an interview Chandler explained his stance on real estate issues and fired back at critics, who have sued the city in order to stop two council-approved construction projects in the Highlands neighborhood and have begun collecting signatures to qualify a ballot initiative for next year’s election that aims to limit the square footage and building height of new homes.

“It’s a very subjective matter,” said the longstanding local lawmaker whose council service began in the 1980s, when Chandler recalled being involved in the council’s attempt to regulate mansionization.

“I started doing this in 1986 when these big homes were just starting to be built,” he said. “The first homes, quite frankly, were kind of like a box. So they needed some architectural review, and we did it. We made setbacks for the second story, we made so they weren’t a box, we tried to get rid a lot of these big columns and big cornices. So it’s not that this has been ignored.”

For Chandler, a fundamental concern in the mansionization debate is the effect building-size restrictions will have on homeowners’ property value and overall net worth. He took direct aim at the proposed ballot measure, keying in on what he claimed were potentially disastrous consequences for Arcadians’ real estate assets should the ballot measure become law in April.

“For most people the biggest investment, the most valuable thing other than how they value their family and their children is their home,” Chandler said. “When you buy a piece of property, they give you the rules. The city or if you go into a homeowners association, they tell you what’s called the ‘C, C and R’s: covenants, conditions and restrictions.’ … From time to time the rules get tweaked just a little bit, nothing as significant as what is being proposed here.”

Chandler cautioned against a core element of the prospective ballot initiative known as “floor-area ratio,” or FAR, which is a design term that refers to the overall square footage of buildings on a land lot.

“First of all, it’s let’s just make the houses a little smaller,” Chandler said in reference to the proposed ballot measure. “Now we’re going to include covered patios, we’re going to include all but 400 feet of attached garage, but we’ll give you 600 feet deduction if it’s a detached garage, we’ll give you more if it’s a single story house. It never ends.”

Chandler claimed an FAR rule in Arcadia would diminish land values by “40 percent” because it would cause developers seeking to build new homes in place of those more than 30 years old to pay a lower purchase price, especially for homeowners in the city’s more mid-level areas as opposed to more affluent neighborhoods.

“Do the math – if we’re taking 40 percent off of 10,000 square feet, we’re going to depreciate that value by about $400,000–$600,000,” he said, estimating $100–$150 per square foot for a property’s total lot area.

“We’re talking about real numbers for real people,” Chandler said.

City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto noted the lack of empirical data to support such claims, but affirmed the probability of Chandler’s steep decline estimation.

“There are too many factors related to individual properties – different parts of town, lot dimensions, slopes, neighborhood context, etc. – to provide any real empirical data on this question,” Lazzaretto said via email. “But, I can say with confidence that developers are paying extra to buy existing homes based on their future potential. From what we see in home sales activity and through our discussions with developers and the local real estate community, the value of a home that will be purchased by a developer for a tear down is pretty closely related to the potential size of the replacement house.”

As a hypothetical, Lazzaretto proposed that “if today you could build a 5,000-square-foot house and after a new law is adopted you would be limited to a 3,000-square-foot house, then you would have a potential for up to a 40 percent loss in sales value on the original house.

“The premium that people pay to own property in Arcadia wouldn’t change because we still have a beautiful setting, the schools are still great, the roads are well maintained, and the crime is low,” Lazzaretto continued. “The change in value would really just come from the difference in the potential square footage of the new building.

“Using the 3,000-square-foot example, you may also see that the original house is purchased by someone who wants to maintain or add onto the existing house instead of someone who intends to tear it down completely because, economically, those options start making more sense than a complete rebuild.”

On the notion of “harmony and compatibility” – a clarion call of those who oppose visually elaborate new home designs that often clash in architectural style as well as structure size with nearby dwellings – Chandler countered that Arcadia has a long history of deviating from structural synergy.

“If you look at the history of the city there are some great examples of some pretty far out architecture,” Chandler said. “The Queen Anne’s Cottage – Lucky Baldwin was known for being quite extreme in some of his architecture. So it’s not like there’s no history at all to any of this.”

Chandler also observed Arcadia’s first city hall was a classical design complete with large front columns.

The mayor pro tem noted his opposition to development moratoriums, which the City Council of neighboring San Marino enacted this year in response to residents’ concerns about mansionization.

“An easy out for people like me in this position is to unload the pressure really fast and maybe call a moratorium, time out, nobody can do anything,” Chandler said. “Unfortunately moratoriums are actually quite a bit irresponsible. It puts a burden on a lot of folks who are either trying to buy a house, remodel a house, go through an escrow, people might have bought land and are going to build. This is all in limbo.

“Nobody cares,” he continued. “It’s all everybody else’s money, so it’s easy not to care. That’s one thing that communities do to kind of dodge the bullet, but it’s only temporary. Unfortunately you’ve got to face the music sooner or later.”

Editor’s Note:

The online version will vary slightly to the PRINT edition. Mr. Chandler made a request for clarification in paragraph 13. It was too late to adjust the print edition as the papers were already on press. Please note that Mr. Chandler misspoke and requested this change. Arcadia Weekly Reporter Joe Taglieri, a seasoned professional, didn’t get it wrong based on the recorded interview.

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