Council adopts new rules for home upgrades

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE — Council members unanimously adopted a new ordinance for single-family residential homes Monday night that has taken more than two years to come to fruition and governs everything from putting up fences to garden landscaping and parking recreational vehicles.

Homeowners need to be aware of the changes, said Robert Stanley, director of Community Development, particularly the new regulations relating to second-story additions.

As of Nov. 1, all property owners who wish to build a second story addition to their homes or build a new two-story home will be subject to a Community Development director’s review or a Planning Commission review, he said, depending on square footage of the second-story.

Neighbors will be notified of a director’s review and will be given an opportunity to appeal a project, Stanley said. A Planning Commission review already entails notification.

“One of the issues we wanted to address was having square, boxy little mansions pop up in predominantly one-story, ranch-style neighborhoods,” Stanley said. “If the plans for these homes were in compliance with the ordinance in every other way, the owners wouldn’t necessarily have to notify anybody else of their plans to put in a second-story addition until it was up — but now they do.”

The revised ordinance also addresses the increasing popularity of flat, Mediterranean-style roofs, which are inconsistent with existing homes, and large front porches that are out-of-scale to the rest of the property, Stanley said. It also aims to minimize the excessive volume space, or bulk, of new homes, he said.

“We are not saying you cannot do a certain design, but we are just saying that it has to be more compatible with the rest of the neighborhood,” he said. “There may be a perfectly good reason why a design should be certain way and that would need to be demonstrated during the review process.”

The revised ordinance includes new residential design guidelines that Stanley believes will help staff to make consistent decisions on building applications and enable homeowners, and the designers, contractors or architects they hire, to better understand what the council is looking for.

The guidelines are designed to head-off future conflict and complaints from neighbors and to make the council’s application process smoother, Mayor Greg Brown said.

“The guidelines give people a better idea of what is acceptable, what is favored and what isn’t,” Brown said. “They are not absolute rules but if we can get people to understand what is expected from them in the beginning, then they should be able to sail through the system.”

Projects requiring a review are exempt from the revised standards if a complete application is submitted to the council’s Planning Department by Oct. 1. Projects that do not require a review are also exempt from the revised standards if a building permit application is submitted before Nov. 1.

A copy of the ordinance is available at the city’s website, www.lacanadaflintridge.com or the council chambers, 1327 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada Flintridge.