The Glendale Historical Society (TGHS) filed a public interest lawsuit in June 2021. The case alleges that Glendale violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when approving a 12-unit market-rate housing project on the site of a historic 1913 Aeroplane Craftsman at 534 N. Kenwood. The City recognizes the property as a historic resource.

The project would entail demolition of much of the historic Craftsman property, including the original garage, as well as a 1920s Craftsman next door at 538 N. Kenwood, which the City does not recognize as historic. TGHS contended that the City failed to perform an adequate environmental review before approving the project and thus did not consider its impacts on the Aeroplane Craftsman. The new three-story building would wrap around it, rising 17.5-feet taller (40’3” versus 22’9”), and it would be built only 10 feet from the Craftsman and five feet closer to the street.

TGHS submitted detailed, fact-based, expert opinion explaining the project impacts on the historic resource that legally triggers an environmental impact report (EIR). An EIR provides not only adequate analysis of project impacts but consideration and adoption of feasible project alternatives to reduce significant impacts. In addition, many community members objected to the negative impact on the aesthetics of the streetscape. A letter from the Adams Hill Neighborhood Association, for example, pointed out that the siting and size of the new construction would “have a significant adverse impact by dwarfing the Historic building” and would “obscure and visually diminish this rare Craftsman treasure.”

Historic Preservation Commissioner Catherine Jurca notes that “historically Glendale was a city of Craftsman homes. In 2006 Glendale surveyed most of the remaining Craftsman houses in multi-family areas, like along Kenwood, because so many had been demolished or altered beyond recognition.” Only 61 out of 521 Craftsman properties surveyed were found to be historic because of alterations, and many of those have since been demolished. “The City needs to protect its remaining Craftsmans,” Vice President for Preservation Advocacy Andrew Allison stated. “So few remain that are architecturally noteworthy and able to communicate the story of Glendale’s development.”

TGHS, which celebrated its 40^th anniversary in 2019 and won a Los Angeles Conservancy Preservation Award for its long history of preservation advocacy, hopes to improve this and future projects on or immediately adjacent to historic sites. It made recommendations to shrink the project to reduce impacts and better respect the character and scale of the historic home. But the developer and the City ignored those suggestions. CEQA is citizen-enforced, and the only remedy left to TGHS was litigation.