1 - City of Glendale

Attachment B
To Design Review Board
· Community Development Department
633 E. Broadway Room 103
Glendale, CA 91206
DRB Case No. 2-PDR-1301725-A
The new proposed project, does not meet the guideline put forth by the
2009 case decision. The new architectural group has reduced the square footage
of the house on 2064 Buckingham Place by about 400 sq ft from previous
designed but they failed to meet the city council requirements to make the
design less intrusive and reduce-mass and scale. The new dwelling is going to
be a massive obstruction to any light coming into our westen1 windows. It is
still blocking light and view from the upstairs bedrooms, changes are
insignificant, even though they presented as such.
The we stem facing slope offers them a significant piece of real estate to
place their expansion on yet they have chosen to erect the entire expansion in
one small spot of their lot; tllis is the issue at heart. The new design is about
three feet taller than the previous design thus making it too bull)'. At no point
did the design group visit our property to see what the proposed project might
look W'e from our windows. Had they visited our property, it would have been
clear that raising the roofline 3 feet higher than the previous proposal that was
rejected for bulk and intrusiveness was not a good idea.
The design group either did not understand the recommendation put forth in
the 2009 case or chose to ignore it.
We are not opposed to our neighbors renovating their home. What we are
against is their doing tllis at such a high price to our own home and
neighborhood. At 3,400 square feet this design is not just largest home, but JOy
f~u hu·geB.' than the 2,200 square foot average for our neighborhood. Even today
that house is not the smallest one. The expansion is an almost fifty a)er«=ent
increase in square footage from the current dwelling; this is by no means a
modest change.
The opponents may argue that they have one of the few houses in tl1e
neighborhood that does not have a second floor which entitles them to being
able to build that.
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