City Architect Supports Preserving Apartments

Efforts to save the Chase Knolls Apartments from the wrecking ball received a boost Monday when the chief architect for the city Cultural Heritage Commission recommended that the Sherman Oaks complex be designated a historic cultural monument.

The commission is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the recommendation of staff architect Jay Oren, who concluded that the 1949-era apartment complex on Riverside Drive deserves the designation, which would make it more difficult to demolish the buildings.

Chase Knolls, Oren wrote, “is an intact and representative example of an exemplary housing type--mid-20th century garden apartment--used in the development of affordable housing in Los Angeles.”

Oren said in an interview that the project in the Modern style is worth preserving.

“It’s part of our past,” Oren said. “It’s a window on how people in the San Fernando Valley lived in the middle of the last century.”

The recommendation was hailed by residents who had faced the threat of eviction from the 19-building, 260-unit apartment complex.

“This is very significant,” said resident Sandy Roberts. “His [Oren’s] word carries a lot of weight with the Cultural Heritage Commission and the City Council. While it doesn’t guarantee we are going to win, it gives us a lot of hope.”

Councilman Mike Feuer’s proposal for monument status has touched off a heated debate among architects and historians about whether the cluster of post-World War II buildings deserves protection.

Legacy Partners bought the apartment complex in January with plans to demolish the buildings and build 362 market-rate apartments and 40 low-income units for senior citizens. Ben Reznik, an attorney for Legacy, accused city officials of misusing the historic cultural monument process to try to save buildings that have no historic or cultural significance.

Two architects hired by Legacy will testify that the buildings do not merit saving, Reznik said.

“Instead, the property is simply one of the many examples of residential and commercial development that was commonplace throughout the San Fernando Valley following World War II,” Reznik wrote in a letter to the commission, summarizing the architects’ conclusions.

If the designation is granted, Legacy would have to apply for special permission to demolish the buildings and a decision would come only after a hearing and evaluation process that could take up to a year.