Stop Work Ordered For "Addition and Interior Remodeling Project" at 1071 E. Angeleno Ave.
Last Tuesday night, Jim Casey and Sue Cleereman, on behalf of Preserve Burbank, spoke during the Public Comment segment of the City Council meeting. After repeated visits to the Building Department desk at City Hall the week before and requests to have inspectors revisit this project, Jim and Sue presented photographs and detailed descriptions of what we believe are code violations as it pertains to this "Addition." You may not recall, but this was the first "Pipeline Appeal" that was heard by City Council after the Interim Development Construction Ordinance (IDCO) was enacted last year. Even in the absence of actual blueprints at the City Council meeting, this project was exempted from the IDCO because it was claimed the homeowner had "substantially complete plans" prior to the IDCO enactment.
This project was submitted as an "Addition" which allows the applicant to reduce the fees ordinarily required for whole house tear downs and may allow the project to keep some non-conforming features such as reduced front or side setbacks, and avoids the additional requirements such as a survey and compatibility considerations. An "Addition" requires 50% of the original structure to remain. Over the past weeks, members of Preserve Burbank were growing concerned that after the removal of the entire roof (which is allowed), ALL of the walls and ALL of the floors had also been removed. Even after requests for additional inspections were made (the building inspector assigned to this project was on vacation) the building department insisted that "all work was being done according to approved plans." We were shocked to see that not only were all the walls and floor removed, it appeared the builder was putting up old pieces of the original wall studs to create the illusion that original walls remained. Here is a photo of one of the mocked up walls...
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