By Bill
FOUR YEARS AGO THE HEIGHTS OF hedges was a major campaign issue. Today, it’s all but forgotten except for a couple of dozen residents who are still embroiled in controversy.
It all started in 2004 when notices went out to hundreds of property owners that their hedges were in violation of a 1948 ordinance that limited heights of hedges, walls and fences on private property. Notices advised owners with non-complying hedges that they could be fined thousands of dollars if conditions weren’t remedied.
With 2004 an election year, it so outraged Bobby Shriver that he ran for and won a seat on the City Council. Since then, an interim ordinance was passed that limits front yard hedges, fences and walls to 41-inches and 12-feet on the side and rear yards. The ordinance allows existing nonconforming hedges, walls and fences as of Aug. 26, 2005, to be exempted or grandfathered in unless neighbors filed objections (Daily Press, July 29, Page 1, “Row over hedge heights heats up.”) Some 105 residents initially filed objections with the city and 23 appeals are pending. On July 23, City Council determined that a special independent hearing commissioner should hear the appeals.
About four years ago neighbor Lesley Shahriary and her family purchased a property at 1133 18th St. consisting of a single-family front bungalow and two apartments at the rear. There is a stand of giant bamboo at the property line next to 1127 18th St. The 30 to 40 foot tall bamboo hedge extends from the sidewalk back along the front two-thirds of the properties.
The Shahriary family has received notice that Lydia Kraske, the owner of the neighboring apartment building at 1127 18th St., has appealed their hedge.
Ms. Kraske, who lives on 25th Street and has owned the 1127 18th St. apartment building for over 30 years, told me that the bamboo was too tall. “Did you see it,” she asked. “It’s so big! It’s higher than a house.” She said the hedge is overgrown and not maintained. “There is a big branch that hangs over the roof of my building …. I just want them to make it decent looking. But, they don’t want to do anything.”
Lesley Shahriary told me that she has not received complaints from neighboring tenants. A neighbor (who asked that her name not be used) said that when she moved into her apartment four years ago, the thick bamboo was a big selling point and provides a high degree of privacy. “I don’t have to close off the curtains and I can watch the squirrels and hummingbirds. It’s really nice,” she told me.
The fate of the bamboo will be determined in a hearing within a few months. More than likely, the two owners will compromise.
Still, Shahriary is right when she says that the process is unfair. “Hundred’s of high hedges stand uncontested in this city because nobody has complained about them. Because the hedge height issue is complaint driven and I’m unlucky enough to have a neighbor who has filed a complaint, I may have to spend thousands of dollars to severely trim, cut or remove plants that’ve provided privacy for my tenants as well as the neighbors next door for over 20 years.”
Unfair? Yes, indeed. And, the city’s position that allows offending hedges that haven’t received complaints to stand tall while lesser hedges that’ve received complaints are subject to removal or trimming is discriminatory too.
As predicted, last weekend the Santa Monicans for Renter’s Rights Steering Committee met behind closed doors and endorsed Jose Escarce for the Santa Monica/Malibu Unified School District Board of Education. Escarce, who has already served 8 years, will join incumbents Maria Leon-Vazquez (also two terms), Ralph Mechur (filling out an expired term) and newcomer Ben Allen as the SMRR anointed for school board.
By endorsing the incumbents, it’s obvious SMMR leadership cares nothing about our schools and everything about political cronyism. It seems that SMRR leaders want to continue the farce of incompetence, mismanagement, financial unaccountability, leadership void and other assaults on public education that characterize the present BOE for another 4 years. After several votes during the recent Congress, SMRR’s membership had even got the message and failed to endorse Escarce.
Nevertheless, Escarce finally got the SMRR leadership’s endorsement, apparently with some key help. Santamonicadispatch.com has posted that SMRR co-founder, former Co-chair and present Steering Committee member Denny Zane, “who has been employed as a consultant by the school district, led the drive to endorse Escarce.”
The Steering Committee also endorsed Santa Monica College’s $295-million dollar construction bond on the November ballot.
Did I mention SMRR strongman Zane is being paid $60,000 annually by SMC and is running SMC’s campaign to pass the bond measure. Must be a coincidence.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 18, 2008. Read the original PDF.