About the Size of It : Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging Home Addition Plans

A lawsuit brought by a group of Glendale homeowners seeking to scale back the size of a neighbor’s planned home expansion has been dismissed.

At a hearing Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien ruled that the Glendale City Council followed appropriate guidelines when it granted a variance allowing Rudy and Georgene Haubenreisser to exceed legal size limits for home additions.

In issuing the variance last June, the council found that strict application of limits, which were adopted in April, 1991, would create “practical difficulties or unnecessary hardship” on the family. The city code allows exceptions if such hardships can be proven.

But in a suit filed against the city in August, the Northwest Glendale Homeowners’ Assn. contended that there was insufficient evidence to support the council’s finding of hardship. The homeowners group sought to have the court withdraw the variance and prevent the expansion.

At Friday’s hearing, O’Brien said he thought that the Haubenreissers had presented enough evidence to support the council’s vote, so he dismissed the complaint.

The Haubenreissers, who have four teen-age daughters, plan to add a second story to their 55-year-old three bedroom, 1 1/2 bathroom residence in the 1300 block of Spazier Avenue. The second level, which will provide two more bedrooms and two more baths, is 475 square feet larger than city regulations permit without a variance.

Glendale City Atty. Scott Howard, who represented the council at Friday’s hearing, said, “I strongly asserted that the court should give considerable deference to the legislative decision.”

In an interview Monday, Rudy Haubenreisser said he was relieved at the outcome because his family will have to move if they can not expand their present home.

“All my children were born here. They have their friends. They know their school teachers. And now I’m supposed to pack up and move?” he said. “I don’t see any reason for it.”

But members of the homeowners association said they may appeal O’Brien’s ruling.

To the homeowners, the council’s decision betrayed the spirit of the size limit law for which the association had lobbied long and hard.

The law separates Glendale neighborhoods into three districts, with maximum permitted home sizes ranging from 30% to 45% of lot sizes. The rule was adopted to stop the so-called “mansionization” of neighborhoods in which homes are built, or expanded, to the point where they almost fill lots. In many cases, expansion creates residences far larger than neighboring homes.

Randy Carter, the association president, said suit was filed because members do not want the Haubenreisser case to set a precedent.

“The focus was to try to preserve the credibility of the variance procedure,” he said. “How do you tell the next person, ‘Look, we got around the law for this person, but we can’t do it to you?’ ”

He said association members fear that the new rules may frequently be overridden “on dicey grounds” by a council sympathetic to emotional appeals.