Tomorrow’s Wed. 2/19/20 2508 St Andrews Hearing Canceled

“As of this afternoon, the owner has requested that the case not be heard tomorrow and that it be continued to an unspecified date in the future.

The matter will be re-noticed once the case is rescheduled.

Any and all comments submitted for tomorrow’s hearing will be forwarded to the Hearing Officer for his/her consideration at the new hearing.

If you have any questions, I may be reached directly at 818-937-8154 or via email.

Best regards,

Vilia

Vilia Zemaitaitis, AICP, Principal Planner ● City of Glendale ● Community Development Department

633 East Broadway, Room 103 ● Glendale, CA 91206 ● (818) 937-8154 ●  vzemaitaitis@glendaleca.gov

A letter submitted to the Chevy Chase Estates Association by concerned property owner and former CCEA director, Jean Simone.

Hello neighbors,

Sometimes certain projects don’t pass the smell test. We have one on St. Andrews Drive.

A few years ago, we caught the owners of the property at 2508 St. Andrews Drive chopping down a beautiful oak tree. We contacted the Glendale arborist at the time. She confirmed it.

Not long after, a woman claiming to be the property owner knocked on my front door…..weeping…and asked if my husband and I would sell some of our land so they could build on the property. Not a chance. We actually like green space….and so do our neighbors.

And then a phone call from her attorney asking to purchase part of our property so they could build…. nope. From the very beginning, this lot was not suitable for building. The property owners knew it. They knew the oak tree was in the way and cut it down. Getting caught destroying the oak tree caused them to wait a few years. But now they’re back. Hoping that time has passed and they can move forward and make a profit building on this unsuitable lot.

The property at 2508 St. Andrews is too steep (they are saying the slope is 60%, but it appears much steeper) It is too small to build on- hence the effort to buy land from us. it had a beautiful oak tree in the middle. The owners knew the lot was too small. They knew it was too steep. And they knew the protected oak tree in the middle would have prohibited any building at all. So they chopped it down. They tried to make the lot fit the standard size required by trying to buy land from us. They bought a lot that is unbuildable and hope to defy every rule and build
anyway.

The Hillside Ordinance was crafted to prevent this type of building. It was crafted to protect our Canyon from anyone trying to make a fast buck while ignoring the rules and regulations. It was crafted to protect us from anyone buying a cheap, unsuitable lot and profiting. This is an attempt to completely circumvent the Hillside Ordinance and make a buck.

Planning Hearing THIS Wednesday FEBRUARY 19, 2020 at 9:30 am
633 East Broadway, Room105
Case #PVAR 1726875

Please join us in expressing our concerns that this project is even being considered. The more voices the better!

If you cannot be there in person, please send an email to the planner:
Vilia Zemaitaitis email: VZemaitaitis@glendaleca.gov  tel: 818937-8154

Did you know there is a collection of historic photos of Chevy Chase Canyon on our website?

Check out our History & Photos page for a look back in time, including photos, newspaper clippings, and more!

You can also view some of the photos on the map below. Admire our neighborhood Lloyd Wright house from when it was originally constructed! Shudder at the location of the discovery of the third victim of the Hillside Strangler! Marvel at the historic sinkhole of ’69!

Do you have historic photos of your home or the canyon? Please send them to us at sarahb@chevychaseestates.us and we will add to the map!

Note: click on the marker, which will bring up a thumbnail of the photo – if you’d like to see the photo full sized, click again for full screen!

The Gingerbread house making bash at our Chevy Chase Library was a huge success. It may have been the best-attended library event ever. And so many creative and wonderful gingerbread houses were lovingly crafted, everybody had a blast. But wait, there was more besides gingerbread houses, there was a 3D printer printing red things, there was a whole lot of reading and checking out of books, lots of families, a raffle, free refreshments, and The Chevy Chase Knitting Club got their yarn on! The knitting club meets monthly at the library every 2nd Saturday from 1 pm to 4 pm. Our canyon library was a beehive of fun on Gingerbread House Day.  Check out the photos. Click on the little arrows upper right to see the full photos.

YOUR Chevy Chase Estates Association sponsored this event with a lot of help from CCEA volunteer directors who have given freely their time and resources to protect and preserve our canyon since 1937.  Can you give back to protect our canyon?   Household memberships $35 per year.    Read about the history of our canyon here: https://www.chevychaseestates.us/history-of-the-chevy-chase-estates-association/ 

.

Thanks to the Chevy Chase Estates Association Director Sarah Emery Bunn for again organizing a cleanup event on our canyon’s historic hidden stairs.  Our team was made up in part by Ken Batchelor, Leticia Gonzalez , Graeme Whifler, Douglas Hughes, and Zak Grausam, and Sarah Emery Bunn.  It was fun dirty dusty work that brought neighbors together for about 90 minutes.

After we got the stairs spick and span, we planted poppy seeds for a beautiful orange show next spring!

And then on the newly scrubbed stairs, somebody noticed a faint long lost message pressed into the concrete the day it was poured.  It read Oct. 15  29.  Almost to the day, we had come 90 YEARS later to clean and honor the works of those before us. The date discovery humbled us all.

But there’s MORE!!!

The new garbage cans on Chevy Chase… please thank CCEA co-president James Ward who worked with the city for months to get this done.