More than two years after Councilman Paul Koretz, 5th District, introduced a motion to address the out-of-scale homes cropping up in neighborhoods, city planning commissioners advanced the effort to help Angelenos battle against the invasion of “McMansions.”

L.A.’s planning commission approved plans that neighborhood activists said will strengthen the Baseline Mansionization Ordinance.
(courtesy nomoremcmansionsinlosangeles.org)

Last week, the commission approved provisions that neighborhood activists said will help strengthen the Baseline Mansionization Ordinance (BMO). More than 50 community members from around the city – identifying as residents of the Miracle Mile, Beverly Grove, Carthay Square, Hancock Park and Hollywood – spoke at the commission hearing as the city continued the years-long movement to enforce tighter restrictions on building sizes.

Los Angeles first established the BMO in 2008 to limit height, setbacks and floor area ratio, and to preserve the character of neighborhoods around the city. However, after the real estate market rebounded, a rush of developers took advantage of loopholes and built homes that are bigger and drastically different in terms of style from those around them, which distorts the neighborhoods they are invading, according to city councilmembers and community councils throughout Los Angeles.

“Vulnerabilities in the regulations became more apparent,” the city’s planning department said in a release this year. The BMO was “not as effective at curtailing large-scale homes and construction impacts.”

The city council has since directed the planning staff to reform the failed BMO.

Shelley Wagers, a Beverly Grove resident and member of the group “No More McMansions in Los Angeles,” said in April when the city released earlier versions of BMO amendments, that they raised concerns in terms of effectively closing loopholes. But this week, Wagers said the planning department is moving in the right direction to strengthen the BMO in “important ways” for R-1 zones – which make up 77 percent of the city’s residential parcels.

“[Those neighborhoods] have certainly borne the brunt of mansionization,” Wagers said. “The relief is desperately needed.”

Community members and Wagers said an exemption on garage space is one of the most important loopholes for the city to address. Right now, the city does not count up to 400 square feet of garage space when calculating size and floor area ratio, whether the garages are attached or detached. Wagers called it the most damaging of the exemptions or freebies that violates “the look and feel” of older neighborhoods.

“This was very much a hot button issue in comments and emails and testimony,” she said. “There was very strong push back.”

The draft BMO amendments continue to exempt 400 square feet of garages only if they are detached or located at the rear of the property. The city will exempt garages up to 200 feet if they are attached and located at the front.

Wagers said it’s not ideal, but when the garage is in the back, it’s much less disruptive to neighborhood character.

The Los Angeles Conservancy said the amendments make “great progress” to strengthen the BMO, and also commended the updated garage guidelines.

“This is welcome news given that many new houses with an attached, front-loaded garage contribute to the loss of community character, with large bulky masses that break the patterns of older, established neighborhoods,” the nonprofit conservancy said in a statement after the hearing. “The amendment is not perfect but gets us closer to where we need to be.”

Also, covered patios and porches will now count when calculating square footage if the amendments pass, which Wagers applauded.

Another proposed change to the BMO includes eliminating bonuses for all single-family zones such as a 20-percent square footage bonus for buildings that meet environmental standards.

“That is among the least defensible elements of the current mansionization ordinance,” Wagers said. “It’s self-deceiving. You don’t achieve a greener house by making it bigger.”

Also for R-1 zones, the planning commission agreed to reduce the square footage for homes in residential areas from 50 to 45 percent of the lot size, regardless of the lot. Wagers said it “makes every kind of sense” and keeps with the original motion from Koretz and intention of the BMO. She also commended changes that pertain to articulation and other bonuses for residential zones.

Wagers said there are still open issues, such as giving authority to zoning administrators to waive zoning hearings, and encroachment plans that are “well-intentioned” but “hard to enforce” and “easy to manipulate.” But she said as they stand, the current amendments will produce homes that are more to scale and more in character with existing neighborhoods.

Wagers said it’s most important that community members follow the amendments through the approval process as aspects can change or be eliminated at different levels of review. For example, the exemption for garage space was eliminated from a first draft in 2015, reinstated in a second draft in April for flat areas in L.A., but now includes the rear and front determinations.

“The city has a sad history of putting developers ahead of the welfare of communities,” Wagers said. “Anybody who cares about the character of neighborhoods needs to be heard.”

City planning staff said after the April draft was released, changes were made to the proposed draft BMO because the department tries to balance the variety of neighborhood identities – meaning characteristics that may be appropriate in terms of garage placement in Mid-Wilshire might be different for neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley.

Wagers also stressed that timing is a major factor. Despite short-term measures to curb the influx of mansionization, such as interim control ordinances, some neighborhood and community councils and other organizations are still seeing older homes torn down and replaced by larger, boxy structures.

“In [16 months,] I’ve seen the one-story house across the street from my apartment (on the 400 block of N. Vista Street) get demolished, to be replaced by an enormous monstrosity that blocks more of the sun,” wrote community member Elizabeth Rosen to the planning commission this month. “After eight months, as they put the finishing touches on that, the house behind me has been demolished. … That’s going to add up to 16 months of construction all told, in a 200-foot radius. In 16 months, two more houses will be forever gone from this neighborhood. Yet in 16 months, the city planners couldn’t manage to work out the amendments. Our city is being transformed, our affordable housing is going up in dust, and nothing is being done about it.”

Councilmen David Ryu, 4th District, and Paul Koretz, 5th District are in the process of reviewing the proposed changes. The city council’s planning and land use management committee will review the proposal in August before the full council considers it.