Trouble in College Park
College Park is an old neighborhood adjacent to Fullerton Junior College. Back in 1979 the City designated it as an historic preservation zone. That was 46 years ago if you’re counting. The area is full of little bungalows and small spanishy looking houses. It’s a nice neighborhood even if you add in the dinky roundabouts on Wilshire – the brainstorm of Wild Ride Joe Felz, who certainly could not have navigated them on election night, 2016.
But I digress.
At the last City Council meeting a woman who lives on Cornell Avenue in the district complained about a building on her street under construction that was completely out of character with the neighborhood and the preservation rules, adopted in 1996, that are supposed to protect against such things. She kindly reminded the Council that she lives in D5 – Ahmad Zahra’s district.
So I went over to the 100 North block of Cornell Avenue and snapped some images.
Now I’m not an architect, but something is awfully wrong here. Yeah, it’s a big box with cheap, misaligned windows that is completely out of scale with the houses around it. Yikes. Check out the puny little rooflet over the cheapo Home Depot door.
How could this happen? It looks like somebody in City Hall dropped the melon with a loud plop. As I understand it, there is a staff process for reviewing these developments. Did it occur? I don’t know. But whether it did or didn’t happen, the problem is obvious. If it didn’t, why not? If they did what sort of knucklehead(s) could have approved this?
Eyesore is right.
At the meeting Development Director Sunaya Thomas preposterously claimed this hulking monster was somehow an ADU development – meaning a mere accessory dwelling unit, a “granny unit,” and that the City had no real control over the design of the beast; and also that it was up to the owner to figure out parking for his tenants! Up to the owner? Since when?
Of course Ms. Thomas is talking out of her backside, as is so often the case. The rules for preservation in the R2P zone are called out in the Municipal Code – Chapter 15.17.60, from which I quote:
All proposed development, including the rehabilitation of existing structures, will be reviewed for compliance with established design criteria and standards, specific to the preservation zones and identified significant properties. These adopted design criteria and standards, entitled “Design Guidelines for Residential Preservation Zones,” are intended to serve as a baseline — a set of elementary guidelines — by which a proposal will be evaluated.
Here are the the guidelines, supposedly unknown to the very person in charge of applying them to new development in preservation zones:
https://www.cityoffullerton.com/home/showpublisheddocument/1232/637436214735730000
I learned a long time ago that it’s almost impossible to make Fullerton planning bureaucrats do their jobs (see noise ordinance issues). The defensiveness and lack of shame will always prevail. But this is appalling. The rules are there to follow, not to pick and choose.
Thomas failed and failed badly. The Council was lied to on Tuesday night. Does anybody care?
Hopefully the D5 council representative Ahmad Zahra, who champions transparency and accountability, will get to the bottom of this fiasco.
Looks like a Paul Dudley-approved mess. Somethings never change.
Sunaya’s got some ‘splainin’ to do. Or she would if the City Council people gave a shit.
The bullshit is piling up so fast even Tender Young Elijah can’t jump over it.
What is the Heritage Group doing about this?
The Heritage Group are paper tigers. There are retired city employees on the board. They just stick plaques on things and collaborate with City Hall. That abomination should have had the whole Group at the CC meeting screaming.
It isn’t Sunayaya’s first lie and it won’t be her last.
Oh no, someone is building something. Call the police! Where’s Spitzer?!? What will we do!?!?
You call yourselves libertarians? Give me a break
Rules are rules. Live with it.
Maybe you can get Zahra to condone this.
Love your freedom: go run a stop sign.
Where is that picture of Zahra smoking, and why wasn’t it used in this article!
I almost did!
Wonder what that Development Director gig pays, and what will the pension cost us?
Probably $250,000 with benefits and pension. Maybe more.
Why does the City Council like being lied to? What’s the benefit? Jung asked the question, will he do anything.
It’s not a matter of like or dislike. It’s a matter of indifference, as in what I don’t know can’t hurt me.
F. Sunaya Dudley.
Her garbled response was utter nonsense from start to last. Just made up shit that she knew would be good enough and no follow up questions. The City Council members are just as bad.
Give them a spoonful of bullshit, tell them it’s honey and they take it like the little ignorant lambs they are.
P.S. The City Council are always approving new preservation zoned areas. Do they even bother to understand what that means? Obviously not. Thomases statement, if true, means that the preservation zone has no meaning. And to try to justify her own incompetence she pitched the notion that a two-story, 3000sf block is an ADU. I wonder if she made that up on the spot or knew ahead of time that there was going to be an ADU above that garage in back. It’s rotten either way.
Neighbors should sue the property owner and the City of Fullerton and get a court order to tear it down and build to code.
Good luck with that! I’m very skeptical it’s an ADU. I think it’s more likely to be a big, beautiful ballroom, one like nobody has ever seen before.
Saskia Kennedy can’t spell “SUCCESSFULL” in her stupid story on her family website. Why would she do a story on this monster? It isn’t a hit piece on Jung or Bushala or a suck up to Ahmad or Connor.
Stinkia still thinks the ambulance service is outsourced.
Staff doesn’t feel they need to pretend to review any project as long as it’s not Tony’s.
Daisy Perez threw the City Council under the bus in the Voice of OC. It’s almost as if she’s setting up the taxpayers for a wrongful termination lawsuit bonanza. I wonder.
Interesting that the deed shows owner occupied. The owner will not live there. It is purely a multi unit rental property. Isn’t that mortgage fraud?
Wow.
It certainly is. Someone may want to report the homeowner.
She did kick them in the nuts a bit there, good for her.
There’s all kinds of shenanigans going on with ADUs. They are great for investors. You can build almost anything you want and call it an ADU and you are good to go. If there was a house there, you could add on an ADU and also build an ADU in the back, which is what it looks like.
And yes, most of these places have NOTHING to do with Mom and Pops living there in their retirement. These are multi-famly rental units.
Older images show a garage with a unit and a dilapidated house way back. I wonder if the old house is still back there and the Monster is supposed to be the ADU. The speaker mentioned 10 bedrooms on the lot.
This is completely unacceptable. How could the staff let this happen?
It’s just nuts. I thought the preservation zone thing prevented this!
Was that the house that was all blocked off by huge bushes?
Yes. I’m going to go look at the back tomorrow.
The “ADU” is the new build. It is 2 3 bedroom units on top of each other. The back house was built in the 1920’s and was 2 bedroom, one bath. They have expanded that to e bedroom 2 bath. There is also a sridio above the garage.
As I suspected. Fullerton staff fucks up again.
It’s all up to how someone in City Hall id feeling that day.
If you want to loom at her salary simply go to Transparent California website