Oct 21, 2004 Plans approved by Zoning

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About 3 weeks ago I found out that our town, which has always been a little lawless and freewheeling, is about to adopt a community standards code that will dictate the style of new construction. When I looked through it, I saw the recommended styles of architecture: Mediterranean, Mission, Spanish and Southwestern. I got my son ready and got in the car and drove to the zoning/ regional planning desk with letter size copies of our floor plans for a verbal assessment.

First of all, I think it's really terrible that the people in our community feel that they need to focus their resources on things like this. I am pretty sure these new building standards were aimed at the Hispanic members of the town. One of the things I like about living here is that it is so much different than the neighboring city Valencia (a corporate constructed town). A lot of the members of the local civic association have their nest eggs wrapped up in property in Val Verde and they’re very concerned about property values. Anyway, the result is that this new code will strip Val Verde of its character and make it like every other banal suburban town in Southern California.

Going through the zoning check is a crucial step for us because our house is a little unconventional and I really wanted to make sure that there wasn’t going to be an issue with design. Zoning is usually the first step in the permitting process and besides approving the design of the house, they also check your setbacks and placement of the structures, fences and septic system to make sure it complies with the zoning codes. All of these things are detailed on a plot plan, which David drew up.

The zoning officer who serves our district is very polite and helpful and suggested that I bring in photos, the plot plan and larger drawings as soon as we closed escrow and he would stamp our plans before the new community standards district code passed. He said his turn-around time was two weeks.

Our escrow has been tied up because we have this bungling and bad-mannered escrow officer. We were supposed to close on Tuesday (today’s Thursday) and she’s not been returning any of the calls from our lender or realtor. I decided to take a chance that the zoning guy would go ahead and accept our plans even though escrow was not over if I showed him the escrow papers.

I went in today while he was out of his office and his colleagues told me that he was just about to leave on a 4-week vacation and would return after lunch for a couple of hours before he left. I came back in an hour and when I returned he said he would take our plot plan application, go over them and have them stamped by the end of the day (!) He said he felt badly for people like me, who had to go through so much red tape from the county. I cannot believe this happened. Usually, if you submit your plot plan and designs for a zoning check at the Temple St. location in downtown L.A., you get your approval in 6 weeks.

When I got home, I got a call from him saying that there was a problem with our plot plan because it didn’t take in account 17’ for future roadway expansion. There is a procedure for contesting setbacks for future roadway expansion. A few months ago, David called up the road department and they verbally approved a reduction to a 7’ future roadway expansion. David didn’t get it in writing so I immediately called the same guy at the road department and explained the situation. He remembered the phone conversation and within minutes, he sent a letter to the zoning officer verifying the new setbacks.

The only snag is that even though the plans are stamped, I can't pick them up until I have a signed, notarized statement that shows that the two parcels will be held as one... and we can't sign the paper until the parcels are recorded under our names, and we can't do that until escrow closes