Chevy Chase Estates Association

Dear Mayor and Honored City Council Members of Glendale California:

The Chevy Chase Estates Association urges The Glendale City Council to stand behind two Planning Commission’s findings and four Design Review Board’s findings and vote not to grant the owner’s appeal to 5 years of Planning’s findings.  (In an old warning, “Never buy a pig in a poke.”)

There is so much bad five-year history.  Watch the video below of planning officials turning down 910 Laird.  Five years of deliberations boiled down to 9 minutes.  Watch their deliberations but mostly watch the concern in their faces.

 Over five years there was a reason 910 Laird was never granted a green light by all the experts at Glendale Planning.  There was a reason neighbors and the Chevy Chase Estates Association opposed this deeply troubled project.

1. Grossly inaccurate plans submitted to the Planning Commission where Glendale Planning Engineers determined the grading was off by 1000 cubic yards.

2. House square footage misrepresented.

3. Impact retaining walls grossly undercalculated.

4. Illegal and unpermitted driveway, unpermitted illegal grading, with cut and fill dumped on neighbors and city land before any city design approval.  This dumping may cause extreme property and life loss the next time we have a 2005 rain when the wash with illegal grading diverts raging mountain flood waters into Laird and Chevy Chase Drive homes. 

5. Bad and inappropriate structure siting on a pristine hillside.  Both the Planning Commission and the DRB told the owner he needed to change the siting but for five hearings he more or less ignored them. 

6. His illegal DIY driveway still climbs up on a hillside right next to neighbors’ second story bedroom windows.  Loss of privacy not to mention a precarious roadway that puts neighbors below in harms way.

7. The owner’s newest plans still call for a house protruding on pristine hillside 50% bigger than the average residential structure.  And once again the accuracy of the latest plans has been challenged but not vetted by planning engineers.  Again, a Pig in a Poke.

This is an unusual appeal to come before the council, normally petitioners ask you to overturn an approved project by the DRB and planning processes.  Almost always council sides with the informed decisions of planning.  

This is the opposite.  We ask you to side with all these smart people in Glendale Planning who found serious problems over the last five years with this project.  Watch the people in Glendale Planning who constantly rejected this project for all the causes listed above. 

Again watch their faces.  This video tells all about five years of disturbing problems at 910 Laird.  For some on council they will be faces you know or knew well.

This information has been shared with all Council Members shown below.  If anybody in Glendale wants to contact our council members to share your ideas about the appeal of five years of 910 Laird Drive rejections, please send them an email.

Mayor Vrej Agajanian:                       vagajanian@glendaleca.gov

Councilmember Paula Devine:          pdevine@glendaleca.gov

Councilmember Ara Najarian:             anajarian@glendaleca.gov

Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian:    akassakhian@glendaleca.gov

Councilmember Dan Brotman:          dbrotman@glendaleca.gov

Director Philip Lanzafame:                planzafame@glendaleca.gov

Case Manager Roger Kiesel:            rkiesel@glendaleca.gov


Public Hearing
The Project described above will be considered by the Glendale City Council at a public hearing in the City Council Chambers, 613 East Broadway, Second Floor, Glendale, CA on TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2020, AT OR AFTER THE HOUR OF 6:00 p.m.
 
The City Council meeting will be available to the public electronically.
 
The meeting can be viewed: On local cable: Charter Cable Channel 6
Streaming Online: https://www.glendaleca.gov/government/public-meeting-portal
 

For public comments and questions during the meeting call 818-937-8100.
 

City staff will be submitting the questions and comments in real-time to the appropriate person during the City Council meeting.

If you desire more information on the proposal, please contact the case planner Roger Kiesel in the Planning Division at818-937-8152 or via email: RKiesel@glendaleca.gov. The staff report and case materials will be available before the hearing date at www.glendaleca.gov/agendas.

Once again, the Chevy Chase Estates Association along with Laird and Chevy Chase neighbors have joined with Glendale Planning to oppose what we believe to be a sketchy, dangerous, and illegal development.  We ask City Council to find with the City of Glendale and say no to five years in the making of a neighborhood can of bad worms.
 
Cordially,
 
Graeme Whifler
Co-President Chevy Chase Estates Association