by Robb Fulcher
The city council has set a special public hearing Tuesday, Feb. 29 to consider potential changes to the rules on home building.
The planning commission has already winnowed out some of the possible changes that had drawn fire as being too restrictive, but some council members said they might vote against some of the commission's recommendations.
The commission has recommended the following changes:
* Eliminating a requirement that developers provide guest parking for single family homes and requiring guest spaces in front of the garage of condominiums available to visitors to any of the units, instead of being tied to one specific unit.
* Eliminating a limitation on the number of stories in some residential zones while maintaining the current height limits.
* Reducing, in some residential zones, the amount of required open space that can be satisfied by a deck on the roof of a home. A roof deck would only be allowed to account for 15 percent of the home's total open space requirements.
The planning commission recommended that the council nix a controversial change that would require tiered setbacks of the top two stories of condo buildings and single-family homes in zones where condos are allowed.
That change would require the front and back faces of the homes to be tiered in their upper stories, the second story set back four feet from the first story, and the third story set back seven feet from the second story.
Detractors have fiercely argued that the rule change would severely limit the size of new homes for as many as 1,000 property owners.
Gary Brutsch, a real estate agent and former councilman in the 80s, was among the most visible detractors. He said on Monday that the planning commission "did a good job of listening to the taxpayers of Hermosa Beach."
Turning his attention to rule changes left standing by the commission, Brutsch expressed some concern over the possible elimination of guest parking for single family homes.
"I think we should encourage as much parking as we can," he said. "That's a quality of life issue. Every public hearing we've held said you should promote parking."
Brutsch also had some doubts about the possibility of changing open space requirements for roof decks.
"That could reduce the size of houses. If you start reducing size, you start discriminating against families," he said. "This is a bedroom community."
Brutsch said the push should be to reduce the number of units that can be built on a lot, not to reduce the size of the units.
Reports from city officials stated that under a "worst-case" scenario -- presuming that all of the originally proposed restrictions were enacted -- would reduce the floor areas of new condos by 3 percent to 12 percent, depending on factors such as the size and configuration of the lot. ER