'No' to New Home Proposed Near Canyon Wall

Residents of the Madison Avenue neighborhood will tell you 70 feet means 70 feet.

Neighbors gathered in force at Monday’s Municipal Advisory Committee meeting.

Most were there to prevent a proposed home from being built too close to a hillside by enforcing a rule that says any new construction built on a 25 to 30 percent grade has to be within 70 feet of the access road it is built on.

County Planning Director Albert Lopez, who also attended the meeting, had previously approved the construction, but his interpretation of the “70-foot rule” was appealed by local Madison Avenue resident Roxanne Lewis.

Lewis said that Lopez’s reading of the rule—part of a 1975 Madison Avenue Specific Plan that regulates all new development in the community—is incorrect.

Lopez’s interpretation of the rule was that the 70-foot length would be measured from the front of the home to the access road. Lewis countered that the entire home and any of its other structures must be within 70 feet of the main access road.

Lewis and other residents took issue with allowing only a portion of the home to be within 70 feet of an access road, saying it would mean a very large home theoretically could stretch forever and cover the canyon walls on its lot as well as endanger local wildlife and destroy open space.

And protecting the canyon walls, the wildlife and the area’s open space is the main reason the 1975 Madison Avenue Specific Plan was created in the first place, said several residents.

“I’m here [because] I see the hawks and I see the wildlife, and I’d just hate to see that gone,” said Madison Avenue resident Michelle Perez.

MAC members sided with residents and voted unanimously to send the community’s interpretation of the 70-foot rule back to the Planning Commission for consideration.

MAC member Marc Crawford was the only partial dissenter, saying that he didn’t think the 70-foot rule that the residents helped to put in the plan was legally defensible.

“Personally I’m torn about this,” said Crawford. “I think any judge would throw it out immediately because 70 feet is so limited. But that’s for the lawyers to work out. I’ve been to the site and the [plan] says in general to keep development off canyon walls … so I have to take into account the intent. I think it’s too restrictive, but that’s what the document says.”

Despite his hesitancy, Crawford voted in favor of the residents' reading of the rule.

After hearing the residents and MAC members speak on the issue, Lopez said he agreed with their views and added that he could have been more thorough in his research and looked more closely at the context.

The Planning Commission will discuss the MAC’s recommendation and make a decision at its next meeting at 6 p.m. on Aug. 1.