Fredonia Drive a rustic street under threat from terrible development
Nov 15, 2014
From the Neighbors of Fredonia Drive:
The proposed three unit building comprises of nine bedrooms and covered, semi-underground parking for six cars, which compared to many LA apartment blocks, sounds pretty insignificant, until one looks at this neighborhood it’s being built in!
Fredonia Drive is a narrow, rustic street, with single side of the street parking and mostly small (under 1,700 square feet) single family homes set on large leafy lots. In comparison the proposed apartment block is being built on just about the smallest lot in the neighborhood, yet the plans are for 4,100 square feet of habitable space, 2,017 square feet of parking garage and 140 square feet of covered balconies spread over two structures on a lot that’s just 7,100 square feet; the building is going to be just about as tall as the lot is wide!
3696 Fredonia Drive is a narrow triangle of land, not much over 35′ wide in many parts, and it only has a very slight downhill gradient. It is a substandard, non-conforming lot which doesn’t even come close to meeting the requirements of an RD1.5 designation under today’s rules, but due to a grandfather clause from the original lot cut date (which was prior to 1948), it seems the proposed development is a ‘by-rights’ project.
We appreciate that change is inevitable, and everyone in the neighborhood agrees that the property currently standing on 3696 needs developing, but not with a structure of this mass, and not with a structure that has a floor to area ratio and building design that does not demonstrate any neighborhood conformity.
We do have three apartment blocks on our street, two are near to the Cahuenga Blvd. end and one is closer to the Kentucky Drive end, however one looks like it was built in the ’60’s and is rather lovely, the second is on the hill side of Fredonia and was built so that it hugs the contours of the hill and therefore doesn’t look out of place, and the one by Kentucky Drive was designed by the noted architect, Lorenzo Tedescois, and is cleverly tucked away on the downslope with significant landscaping.
Our neighborhood doesn’t have an official historic status, however most of the homes have retained their original floor-plans and we have several beautiful mid-century modern homes, as well as a house designed by Harwell Hamilton Harris in 1939 (The Lee and Mary Blair House II, 3763 Fredonia Drive, Los Angeles CA) and quite a few film stars from the early days of cinema had homes on our street.