By Mary O’KEEFE

Anyone who has tried to build or remodel their house in the City of Glendale knows it is anything but easy. Few know this as well as Jodi Deranja who experienced the trials and tribulations of remodeling her Glendale residence. Glendale has a design review board that, according to the city website, reviews building plans concerning site plan and design issues prior to issuance of building permits for projects larger than those which have statutory exemption.

“These repressive design reviews are based on a mishmash of inconsistent guidelines and oftentimes take up to one year for homeowners to receive the permits they need in order to proceed,” Deranja said. “We heard it would take about two to three months; it took us 10 months.”

Those months were filled with what seemed like an endless amount of paperwork and discussions with city inspectors and planning design review representatives.

Deranja, who is a real estate agent with Nourmand & Associates, was very familiar with the style of her home and knew the value of keeping consistency within the design of the neighborhood. Her home is Spanish-style and it surprised her and her husband that the urban design planner assigned to her project said she had to install wood in an area where stucco, according to the Spanish design, would normally be.

Different style accents were not the only things that were added and taken out of the original permit.

The design reviewer had sent a couple of requirements that included lowering the roof line and moving walls a few inches here and there. A few of the suggestions did not seem to be thought through.

“[One of the changes] would have created a four-foot section of the master bedroom ceiling to drop,” she cited as an example.

She refused that suggestion and that is when, Deranja said, the process got worse with the urban designer.

“The urban designer hated us,” Deranja said.

After each suggestion it became more evident to Deranja that this urban designer had not seen her home or her neighborhood.

“I think [the reviewers] look at photos on Google Earth,” she said. “We kept asking for any one [of the designers] to come over to the house.”

At one point, after another go around with designs and new requirements from the city, she agreed to move back two inches the wall that they were adding to their home and drop the ceiling. But with another added requirement the new section would place a door in the middle of her living room.

“Then they said move back a foot,” she said.

At one point one of the requirements would have had them tearing the home’s chimney down. That was another battle that involved Deranja going to the city armed with paperwork to ask why those changes were required for her permit to be granted.

Over the 10 months she met several times with the urban designer Phil Lanzafame, director of the city’s community development, and with the Glendale mayor and councilmembers. Deranja and her husband finally agreed on all the design “suggestions” because they wanted their permits.

They were happy that, despite the delays (they wanted work to start in August but were delayed until December), there seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

“That’s when they came back and told us to put wood paneling on the house –our stucco house, which would make it a modern design,” Deranja said.

There were more discussions about planter boxes and exterior light fixtures. Deranja was ready to go to a lawyer, an idea that she shared with her urban designer, to help her when the permit was approved.

“I see a lot of houses in Glendale,” she said of her real estate business. “I see a lot of mistakes.”

She said after this experience she has a better understanding of why some homes are remodeled a certain way.

Deranja has nothing but praise though for everyone she met with, except for her issues with the urban designer. She said the city council members and mayor listened to her concerns, as did Lanzafame.

“I feel the design review is too subjective,” she said.

The permitting issues in several areas in Los Angeles County seem to be an issue for many homeowners from Malibu to Glendale. CVW reached out to several owners of construction companies and others who deal with the permitting process and found similar stories and, in some cases, construction companies that said they will not work in Glendale because of the complicated permitting process.

“We reached out to four construction [companies] and two said they would not work in Glendale,” Deranja confirmed.

Homeowners like Deranja have been sharing their frustration with the city and it seems those issues have been heard. Recently the community planning office has started looking into the issues with the design review process and is moving forward in making some significant changes.

“We are looking at a number of things,” said Bradley Calvert, assistant director of community development in Glendale.

For one example, the downtown specific plan has been examined for needed changes, making requirements clearer. That same level of scrutiny has been turned to residential homes.

“We want to give the applicant very clear [instructions] on what we want,” he said.

Calvert added the department will be looking at getting more information upfront concerning, for example, remodeling a home. This, he said, will help the resident and the planner because there will be less back and forth with requests for more information.

“I believe we need to tighten some of the standards, the design standards,” he said.

He did agree the subjectiveness of the design process can create issues between homeowners and planners and wants to tighten those design requirements.

Another issue is the time it takes from application to design. Part of the delays comes from permits that are reviewed by the design review board. The board has had some issues when meeting in having enough members in attendance for a quorum, delaying some decisions. The planning department will be looking into alternate design review board members. 

One of the complaints from homeowners like Deranja is urban planners who do not know the specific design of their home, in Deranja’s case, Spanish-style.

Calvert is planning on having planners go out to Glendale neighborhoods to familiarize themselves with the styles of each unique area.

Not every design will be painted with the same brush. Although he has only been in Glendale since July, Calvert is well aware of the unique neighborhoods within the city and will honor the designs within them. There will be outreach to neighborhoods when this part of the process begins.

“We will have public engagement in the process,” he said. “We want to create a template to reflect what is important to [the resident].”

He is hoping to “kick off” the adjusted design standards by the end of year but said the changing of codes will take longer.

He does advise anyone who has issues with their designs to contact him or Lanzafame, as Deranja did, at the city.

For Deranja, her home’s remodel was a lesson in patience, perseverance and some community activism and, although it cost her more money with all the changes, she said she is happy with her home and her neighborhood. She added that nearby neighbors have noticed her remodeled home and some are thinking about remodeling. She shares her story with them and, hopefully with the new changes in the design process, getting the work done will be easier.

  Mary Okeefe