Neighbors’ Outcry Over Office Building Hits New Heights

Settling a dispute over the height of a Studio City office building turned out to be a tall order Tuesday for Los Angeles city officials.

The city’s Building and Safety Commission delayed action on homeowners’ complaints that a “three-story” building under construction next to them is actually seven stories high.

Commissioners said the issue is so confusing that it will take several weeks to sort out charges and countercharges.

Work on the $4.3-million structure next to Ventura Boulevard and Fairway Avenue is nearing completion, meanwhile.

Began Last Year

The dispute has been brewing since late last year, when residents of a Studio City hillside noticed that steel beams being erected next to their homes were climbing higher and higher.

Homeowners said that construction workers at the site had earlier promised that the finished building would not reach higher than the base of their hill and would not interfere with their view of the eastern San Fernando Valley.

One family went to court in February in an unsuccessful attempt to halt the construction. Two other suits against developer Eitan Gonen are pending in Los Angeles Superior Court.

On Tuesday, homeowners demanded that the city force the developer to tear out the top two floors of the building. They contended that officials are violating the city’s zoning and building codes by allowing the construction to proceed.

Representatives of the developer and the city’s Building and Safety Department denied that the office is too high or is being improperly built, however.

An argumentative group of 19--which included lawyers, developers, homeowners and city building officials--crowded before the Building and Safety commissioners’ desk at a City Hall hearing.

Each side just barely got its two cents in before commission President Benito Sinclair hoisted the white flag.

Homeowners’ lawyer DanielShapiro said city codes allow a 44-foot building, not one that’s 95 feet. “It’s an issue you should be addressing,” he said.

Elwood Lui, the developer’s lawyer, said the project has been built to city requirements. “It’s a three-story building as defined by law,” he said.

‘Real Can of Worms’

Deputy City Attorney William F. Childs said it is too late to complain about the project because objections weren’t filed on time after the 1986 building permit was issued. “This body is being asked to open a real can of worms” by ignoring the statute of limitations, he said.

Richard Holguin, the city’s chief structural plan checker, said the city did nothing wrong in approving “this three-story building” when the permit was issued. “We’re not going to stop it. We don’t think there’s any violation,” he said.

Sinclair said it may be that his commission has no jurisdiction over the height issue. He said the panel will “have no authority to touch it” if the height was authorized by zoning regulations.

“The testimony here is extremely at variance and convoluted at this point,” Sinclair shrugged.

Afterwards, homeowner Charles Bernuth was disappointed at the continuance to Aug. 2.

“We had a full videotape of that project that shows it’s seven stories, not three,” he said. “To me and my neighbors, the issue is real clear. It’s a violation of the city code.”

Bernuth said he was upset that he and neighbor Michael Minkow had to hire Shapiro and lawyer Jerome Zamos to make the city enforce the code.

“Our goal now is to tear down the top of that building,” Bernuth said.