A Misleading Email

In September 2004, the month after Briggs Road residents were closed out of their homes by a private LLC landowner, one of our neighbors received an email reply to the question, “As the County did issue… Certificates of Compliance, doesn’t some right of access exist to the property owners?”

The reply appears to be replete with errors, which is surprising because it came from one of Michael D. Antonovich’s deputies, Paul Novak, who was Planning Director for the County of Los Angeles at the time.

Our copy of the email is barely legible. In the belief that our access difficulties would be short-lived, we did not retain digital copies of the email. All we have is this copy of a scan of the printout of the original.

Sorry. Perhaps it would be helpful to retype a portion.

Subj:      RE: Agua Dulce Homeowners

Date:     9/17/2004  9:20:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From:    PNovak@bos.co.la.ca.us

…

CC:       NHickling@bos.co.la.ca.us, …

One thing to bear in mind about the certificates of compliance is that they do not “confer” access. The certificates merely reflect a County determination that the property in question is a legal lot consistent with the State of California Subdivision Map Act (SMA). A legal lot does not necessarily have access—regrettably, there are many lots in the County and in other jurisdictions that do not have legal access.

I have read the 100 plus pages of the Subdivision Map Act of California, and I could find nothing that required a lot to have access for its map to be accepted as legal. What is required, though, is that the parcel meet the requirements of the county.

Specifically, “Section 66411: Each local agency shall, by ordinance, regulate and control the initial design and improvement of…subdivisions for which this division requires a tentative and final or parcel map.”

And from the LA County Regional Planning website: “Major issues involved in the evaluation of proposed tract maps include: … Availability of adequate access… to serve the proposed development.”

Item 6, on the County’s Land Division Application Checklist is “Affidavit of Easements.”

Do you believe that a five-and-a-half mile long course of torture by automobile, open only at the whim of an eccentric state agency, constitutes “adequate access”? It will not take many trips over that bone-jarring track to convince you that it is not at all adequate.

If you don’t have adequate access, you don’t get map approval. Isn’t that the clear implication?

But let’s back up a bit, cut the bad guys some slack, and re-examine what Regional Planning says on the web page:  Adequate access is a major issue involved in the evaluation of proposed tract maps. Those are the exact words, reorganized a bit, cut and pasted from the very website.

Is it possible that Mr. Novak meant that adequate access is a major consideration in the approval of a map, but is not an ironclad requirement? I have been working on this particular post for a very long time and do not want to mess it up with a sloppy interpretation, so let’s be super accurate and give Mr. Novak the benefit of the doubt.

       The best I could find in the LA County Code was: 

21.48.100 Access to property.

The advisory agency may require as a condition of approval of a tentative minor land division map that the subdivider produce evidence that the property as divided will have access to a public street or highway.       

It says “may,” but I am assured by folks in the business that they actually always do require access.

So, sure, if you want to split hairs and be a bit of an ass about it, the Subdivision Map Act doesn’t confer access, but in conjunction with Los Angeles County ordinance and actual practice, it requires access. What’s the difference? It looks like having a legal map comprises a pretty strong affirmation of access.

And you need map approval to get permission to pay for a Certificate of Compliance, and you need that for a building permit. And the houses up here—the newer ones anyway—have building permits.

So okay, maybe Mr. Novak made a mistake. Director of Planning but, you know, to err is human. And maybe, to use his words, there are, regrettably, many lots in the County and in other jurisdictions that do not have legal access.

Briggs Road is a County easement. Long ago, when establishing that easement, the County left off the parcels at the ends of the road where it meets the blacktop—most likely as a strategy to avoid taking any responsibility for grading or maintenance. And the fact-checkers should have discovered that—if they really did any checking at all. That could explain a mistake.

Regional Planning expressly considers adequate access a major issue, apparently a very high priority. The Director said that lack of adequate access is regrettable. Somehow the County failed, for whatever reason, to ensure that many lots would have adequate access. Regrettably.

But what are we to make, then, of the fact that our adequate access is cut off by public agencies?  Worse yet, what are we to make of the fact that sitting on the board of the most intractable public agency cutting us off from the world, Metrolink, is Mr. Novak’s boss, Michael. D Antonovich?

And even worse, that obstacle was created after we (and Mr. Hickling) received Mr. Novak’s email.

And Fish and Game slammed the river shut after we received Mr. Novak’s email.

And LOS ANGELES COUNTY sold the parcel at the other end of our road for a PITTANCE to the Mountains Conservancy, a CALIFORNIA agency, after we (and Mr. Hickling) received Mr. Novak’s email.

That is regrettable.

What part of this was a mistake?

Or do you have a better theory? What do you think? Write us a comment.

I will take up with Mr. Novak’s email again in the next post.