No welcome mat for proposed homes

Lolita Harper

COSTA MESA -- Michael Schrock won’t have to worry about meeting his

neighbors after he moves into his house in the 200 block of Cecil Place.

Acting as an informal “unwelcome wagon,” many of them introduced

themselves at the latest Planning Commission meeting where they

vehemently opposed his plans to build two more houses on his large lot.

“I had no idea my wife and I were going to get any grief at all,”

Schrock said. “I thought we were going to be heroes because we are

bringing in more owner-occupied houses and not apartments.”

The Planning Commission voted 3 to 2 to recommend the rezoning

application to the City Council. Commissioner Eleanor Egan and Katrina

Foley voted not to recommend the application. The Council will hear the

issue at its Sept. 17 meeting.

“I feel bad for this guy,” said Councilman Gary Monahan. “Here he is

proposing to build these beautiful, owner-occupied homes -- that so many

people have said they wanted -- and his future neighbors are giving him a

hard time,” Monahan said.

Schrock applied for a petition to rezone an 18,000-square-foot lot --

which he purchased for about $800,000 -- in order to build two more

houses behind the existing two-story house, he said.

Schrock, a landscape architect, said the proposed houses are expected

to sell for about $500,000 and hopefully raise property values.

Furthermore, each house is being built on about 6,200 square feet --

twice the size of small-lot specifications, he added. A portion of each

additional house will be two stories and Schrock plans to move into the

front house, he said.

Under current residential zoning standards, Schrock could have

rearranged the property lines and built all three houses that satisfied

an R-1 zone, Planning Commissioner Bruce Garlich said. But the planning

department recommended that he apply for rezoning in order to create a

better product, Garlich said.

It was Schrock’s application that sparked a neighborhood-wide protest.

Russel O’Hare, whose fence backs up to the massive property, said the

houses would crowd the neighborhood and cheapen its character. The reason

he bought a house in Costa Mesa, instead of buying a brand new home in

South County, was because he liked the feel of the neighborhood, he said.

O’Hare said he and his wife enjoy looking out of their windows to see the

sky -- not a two-story building.

“I sit down in my den and read the Sunday paper in my underwear.

Imagine having two, two-story houses there just looking in at me,” O’Hare

said.

Neighbors in the area are circulating petitions to present to the City

Council at the meeting, O’Hare said.

Egan, who voted against the recommendation, said Schrock’s plan was a

good project in the wrong place. The development pattern in the

neighborhood outlines that every house has street frontage and there is

one house per lot. A rezoning would break that pattern, she said.

“The whole point of zoning is that people accept certain restrictions

with the expectations that their neighbors will also. When you rezone in

the middle, you defeat the purpose and destroy the reciprocity,” Egan

said.

O’Hare said he is also resentful of developers who buy property on the

Eastside only to build multiunit housing and make a quick buck.

In recent history, there were a number of lots that were purchased

only to raze the existing structure and build apartments, Garlich said.

It was that development pattern that prompted the new guidelines for

small lot building, he said.

As a planning commissioner, Garlich said it his job to look at the

small lot development standards. Besides the not-in-my-backyard attitude,

Garlich said the plans satisfied all the rules and Costa Mesa’s need for

more owner-occupied housing.

If the new specifications are still undesirable to the community,

maybe somebody should go back and change the rules again, he said. But

Garlich said he will continue to make his decisions based on the current

requirements.

“Hard for me to say, ‘don’t do it,’ because of political reasons. I

don’t consider myself a politician, I’m a planner,” Garlich said.

* Lolita Harper covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at o7 lolita.harper@latimes.comf7 .