Mansionization meeting draws a crowd

-- Barbara Diamond

More than 50 local folks attended a special Planning Commission

meeting Monday on mansionization.

The meeting was held to review short-, mid-, and long-term

recommendations the commission has worked on at the City Council’s

direction to stem the tide of increasingly larger homes being

constructed, which many complain are ill-suited to the city. The

recommendations came out of 10 months of workshops on the mansionization

issue.

“I was glad to hear about this meeting,” resident Laurie Fitzgerrell

said Monday. “I wish we had heard about the others.”

Resident Thomas Essler said he is facing financial ruin from the legal

battles he has waged against the construction of a five-level mansion

next to his property. The project was denied by the Design Review Board,

Essler said, but approved by the City Council.

“Toni Iseman was the only one who supported me,” Essler said. “I was

impressed when I read about this meeting. I only wish it had begun before

and maybe I wouldn’t be in this pickle.” Monday’s meeting was publicized

in a story on mansionization that appeared in last week’s edition of the

Coastline Pilot. Seventeen people from the audience spoke at the meeting.

Speakers included members of the Design Review Board, architects,

property owners and representatives of neighborhood or civic groups.

Following public input, commissioners waded through 13 of the 19

recommendations that had resulted from about 50 hours of hearings during

10 previous meetings.

Items under discussion included the handling of variances from the

standard requirements to the ways of measuring building heights and how

better to educate new Design Review Board members on the general plan

policies and the zoning ordinance.

The commissioners called it quits after four hours, but will pick up

the line-by-line review at a date to be announced. The public will be

allowed to comment on the remaining recommendations.