Anti-mansionization measures receive green light from Planning Commission

The Los Angeles Planning Commission has voted to approve proposed changes to the city’s so called “mansionization” rules. The changes would close loopholes in the current law, two years after city councilmember Paul Koretz recommended that L.A. tighten its single-family development rules, the L.A. Times reported.

The approval is a welcome development for some Los Angeles residents who oppose the developments they deem out of scale for their neighborhoods. 

“It gets so you just want to crawl in a hole and die rather than take a walk in your own neighborhood,” Studio City resident Barry Johnson said at a hearing last Thursday, arguing that attached garages should not be exempt from the size limit.

The new rules would require a home to be no bigger than 45 percent of its lot size — a reduction from the current 50 percent policy and would revoke the 20 percent square footage bonus for ecologically friendly construction. It would also require that porches and patios count toward the legal limit on building size.

For some neighborhood advocates, however, these changes aren’t enough. The Beverly Wilshire Homes Association, for instance, wanted attached garages to also count toward building size.

Sure enough, those on the other side of the aisle are unhappy as well.

Local resident Steve Mayer told the Times that, under the new building limit, he would not be able to expand his 2,600-square-foot home, even though his neighbors all have 4,000-square-foot mansions.

The proposed rules will now go to City Council to be reviewed and approved before they can become law. [LAT] — Cathaleen Chen