By Katta Hules
The design for another home is up for review by the city council. The project, located at 920 S. Fifth Street, was set to be discussed this week but the property owner requested a continuance, claiming not enough notice. Though this was granted, the council still had a hearing on the matter.
Three residents spoke up against the project. The first was Brett Mitluski who said it was “an attractive design and would be appropriate in many other parts of Arcadia, however it is too large for this particular street.” He pointed to the project’s proposed size of 6,090 square feet with attached 726 square foot garage and “nearly forty-two percent” floor area ratio (FAR) as the major problems. The City Staff Report on the matter says the houses in the area range from “1,260 to 2,546 square feet.”
He cited consistency in design as one of the appealing features of 5th Street. “Unlike many other streets in the South Arcadia area that have become a hodgepodge in designs, this street has kept a harmonious balance.”
Mitluski referenced a similar case on Oxford Drive where “residents worked with their homeowners association and eventually the planning commission and compromises were made.” He expressed hope that compromises could be reached with this case, suggesting either making it a single story home or pushing back the second story to minimize the mass. “The decisions made on these projects set precedents. If you allow one house that is highly out of scale with the neighborhood, many more can follow.”
He said projects like this were making people flee to cities with “clearly identified mansion districts, clearly identified … modest family neighborhoods and clearly defined multi-family housing areas. Arcadia has blurred the lines so much that have lost their distinct identity and overall appeal.”
Edith Wong, a thirty-five year resident of Arcadia and a neighbor to the proposed project, followed Mitluski. She thanked for city staff for its recommendation to deny the appeal in its report and advocated against the new development. “The size of the house is too big for our neighborhood and does not fit.” She had with her two letters from other neighbors “who feel the same way.”
Wong expressed concerns about privacy, the environment and house values. “We feel like these big buildings, they look like a warehouse and … next to it … our house[s] look like … doghouse[s].” This was the third time she had attended a council meeting to protest a proposed development.
The last speaker was David Arvizu, president of Saving Arcadia, an anti-mansionization group. His focus was the environmental impact of the project and the fact it had been declared exempt from an environmental impact report. The Staff Report said it “qualifies for a Categorical Exemption for the new construction of one, single family residence under the California Environmental Quality Act [CEQA].” CEQA is “a statute that requires state and local agencies to identify the significant environmental impacts of their actions and to avoid or mitigate those impacts, if feasible,” according to the California Natural Resources Agency website.
Arvizu quoted from the March 2015 California Supreme Court case Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley where the Court issued a two-part test for these exemptions, as follows: “Are there any unusual circumstances? … If yes, is there a reasonable possibility that this will cause a significant environmental impact?”
Arvizu made the case that because this house would be bigger than the norm of the neighborhood and because Arcadia’s rate of development is very high compared to surrounding cities, these constituted as unusual circumstances. (Arcadia’s rate of development relative to other cities could not be ascertained at the time of this publication.)
He stated big houses like this project cause significant impact to the environment. “When one of these mansions is built there can be up to a doubling of the residential population, the number of vehicles and trip generation, use of city services, water use and energy use, in addition to environmental impacts caused by increased population density, these mansionization projects will cause significant environment impacts related to the size of the new homes.” He called on staff to research and disclose the cumulative impacts of these large homes. “The city cannot hide behind its failure to gather this information required by CEQA in claiming that this house is exempt.”
The city council’s continuation pushed the full consideration of this appeal to the Oct. 4 meeting at 7 p.m.
