Alice Englander: "What happened to the rules and guidelines...Maybe it's a lost cause at this point...The system is not working."

ABSTRACT: During Appearances at the Special City Council Meeting on April 3, 2008, Carmel resident Alice Englander spoke about “living in construction hell for over a year” and her concerns about the City’s design “rules and guidelines.” Englander’s comments are transcribed; a hyperlink to a video and audio presentation is referenced. COMMENTS are made.

Special City Council Meeting
Thursday, April 3, 2008

VI. Appearances
Anyone wishing to address the City Council on matters within the jurisdiction of the City and are not on the agenda may do so now. Matters not appearing on the City Council’s agenda, per the Brown Act (Open Meeting Law), will not receive action by the Council at this meeting but may be referred to staff for a future meeting. Presentations will be limited to three (3) minutes, or as otherwise established by the City Council. Persons are not required to give their names, but it is helpful for speakers to state their names in order that the City Clerk may identify them in the minutes of the meeting. Always speak into the microphone, as the meeting is recorded on tape.

“Hi. My name is Alice Englander and I’m here on a very personal issue today. My husband and I have been living in construction hell for over a year. It has been so disturbing on so many levels that we have seriously begun talking about moving away from Carmel. I’m here today because we believe our situation is not unique and is instead an indication that the system for remodeling and construction in Carmel is broken. We are not opposed to change. Many of the houses around us have undergone major and minor reconstruction in the past ten years and mostly with positive results. We know that good change is possible."

"Then there’s a project in our neighborhood that makes us realize things are just not right. It started over a year ago. There’s no end in sight. In addition to the normal inconveniences and disruptions of having construction nearby, these people have done things that have stunned us. They have cut down trees, they have torn down fences along neighboring property lines without talking to the neighbors and have replaced the original ivy-covered grapestake fences with maximum height solid wood fences that seriously cut down on light and diminish views. They have removed dirt and have tiled, bricked and paved practically everything in sight. They have done electrical work, but there’s no evidence they’re going to do undergrounding. They seem to have tried to use every conceivable building material and every known architectural style on this one relatively small Carmel charmer. Lest you wonder why we haven’t said anything, well we have. We’ve left notes for the absentee owners to no avail. And as a bonus, when they do stop into to visit their project their dog barks. I have talked to the current and prior building inspectors and to two different planners this year. They were polite and informative, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. I’m not here today to complain about this specific project. I’m not asking anyone to do anything about it. It may even be completely legal and that is what’s really making us crazy. Everywhere we walk in our neighborhoods, we see similar projects; oversized, overwrought, over paved, over lighted, over decorated houses with little integrity or charm and if we’re lucky, we get a cherry on top in the form of a dish antennae."

"What happened to the rules and guidelines that we were working on we thought were being improved and strengthened over the past few years? Maybe it’s a lost cause at this point, but I urge you to review the building process. The system is not working. At a minimum, consistently enforce the rules that already exist. And please for the sake of those of us who live here, please set and enforce a limit on how long these projects can drag on. Maybe it is a lost cause at this point and that makes me very sad. Thank you."

REFERENCE:
Archived Videos
Special City Council Meeting
April 3, 2008
(Beginning Time 16:30 – 19:25 Ending Time)

COMMENTS:
• The City of Carmel-by-the-Sea’s inconsistent, arbitrary and overall lax enforcement of the city’s design guidelines, the Municipal Code and the Local Coastal Program has only been exacerbated by the absence of a Planning Director since 2003.

• In the Spring 2008 issue of The Coastal Traveler, Carmel is advertised as “See the classic cottages by the sea before they are Disneyfied by the tasteless.”