Bait & Switch

The Claremont City Council and city commissions have taken their traditional August vacation, so things have been fairly quiet in town. The hiatus has given us an opportunity to take look at some older items that have come before the council this year.

One of the complaints we and others have with the powers-that-be in Claremont, at least in past years, is the arbitrary nature with which they decide matters. While they like to prattle on about things like process, when push comes to shove, they tend to set aside the rules that are supposed to govern local decision-making.

An example of this came up at the last City Council meeting on July 24th. Check here for the agenda material for the meeting.

At that meeting, the City Council heard the appeal of an Architectural Commission decision on a dispute between two neighbors on Brescia Ave. in North Claremont. The dispute began when two residents, Peter and Lisa Pruitt, received approval from the city's Planning Dept. to make some changes to their one-story home.

The Pruitts' original plans called for the addition of a clerestory, a large, raised area where the roof was opened up and lifted up, with windows to allow light in. From the exterior, it was supposed to look like a second-story but from the interior it was supposed to be a kind of high-ceilinged affair with some windows for lighting.

But looks can be deceiving. When the city plan checked the work, they found that the Pruitts' builder had put in a second-story after all. City planning staff went ahead and approved the second story, even though the builder and the Pruitts said they were going to do one thing but then built another.

With the second story came windows on the north side (not included in the original plans) that overlooked a neighbor, Betty Hiett. Hiett was extremely concerned because she said the Pruitts' new windows looked directly into a sliding glass door in her backyard, giving the Pruitts a view into Ms. Hiett's dining and living rooms. This, Hiett felt, was a violation of her privacy, and she appealed the city planners' approval of the project to the Architectural Commission.

The commission upheld Hiett's appeal on May 23 this year and called for the Pruitts to redesign their second story and to remove the offending windows. One commissioner referred to the Pruitts tactics of getting one set of plans approved, then building another thing as a "bait and switch."

The Pruitts appealed the Architectural Commission's decision to the City Council, where it was heard at the 7/24/07 meeting. After a long debate, the council voted 3-2 to uphold the commission's decision. Ellen Taylor and Sam Pedroza voted to allow the Pruitts to keep what they had built.

What struck us as odd in the matter was willingness of the Planning Dept., as well as Taylor and Pedroza, to reward the bait and switch the commissioner referred to. Why have a planning process at all if you're going to chuck it all after the rules are broken?

And worse was the willingness of Pedroza and Taylor to overturn a commission decision. Taylor talks about respecting commissions when it suits her, but when she wants to override them, she has no hesitation. If we're going to have rules, then we need to live by them. Is that really too much to ask for?