The Seal Beach City Council voted 4-0 on Monday, Dec. 10, to have staff draft a resolution allowing the division of a 75-foot Ocean Avenue lot into two smaller lots. The resolution will come back to the council in January. Legally, nothing has changed. Under state law, the official decision will be made when the council votes on the resolution.
Councilwoman Ellery Deaton, who represents District 1, was required by state law to recuse herself from the matter because she lives near the property.
Harold Rothman, owner of 400 Ocean Ave., asked the council to overturn a 2011 Planning Commission decision that rejected his request for a variance to divide his lot into two smaller lots. The Seal Beach Zoning Code requires houses on the Gold Coast to be at least 50 feet wide.
However, according to a chart that Alex Yoffe, a business manager who works for Rothman, there are 36 lots that are less than 50 feet wide on the Gold Coast. There are 45 lots in the area. Only three of the lots are 75 or more feet wide.
City Attorney Quinn Barrow said the council had four options: affirm the Planning Commission’s decision to reject the variance, reverse the decision, impose additional conditions on the property or change the Zoning Code to allow smaller lots on the Gold Coast rather than grant the variance.
Barrow said Rothman could apply for a Zone Text amendment to change the code.
Councilman Gary Miller said he did not want the other lots on the Gold Coast to be subdivided.
Rothman recently told the Sun that if the lot was not divided, someone could build a 14,000-square-foot house on the land. He told the council Monday night that every potential buyer had expressed an interest in building a large house. Rothman expressed concern about “mansionization,” the building of large houses that are out of character with the surrounding area.
Mayor Michael Levitt said he thought bringing up a mansion was a scare tactic. He suggested Rothman should argue that dividing the lot would make sense and would not be a detriment to the neighborhood.
Among the findings required to grant a variance, Barrow said the council had to find that a circumstance unique to the property would result in the owner not being able to enjoy the property if the code were strictly applied. Barrow also said the council members would have to find that they were not granting a special privilege.
Several residents agreed. Five citizens spoke in favor of granting the variance. Two spoke against granting the variance.
Warren Shulton of Ocean Avenue said he was dumbfounded when he read that the minimum lot size on the Gold Coast was 50 feet. “What he wants to do would be in perfect harmony with the neighborhood,” Shulton said.
Barbara Barton of Ocean Avenue read a letter from Mike Buhbe that said it would be worth the time for the council to divide the lot to preserve the small-scale character of the area.
However, Susan Morgan disagreed. She said he purchased the property knowing that it could not be divided.
“He chooses to ignore the laws that are on the books,” Morgan said.
Rothman said that he was told he could divide the lot when he bought it.
Morgan urged the council to uphold the law and deny the variance.
In a Feb. 28 letter to Mayor Levitt, Fiona and Scott Keller opposed Rothman’s variance request. The letter said Rothman was arguing for the variance so the lots would be “in keeping” with the larger Seal Beach community. “Our response is that Seal Beach is about diversity, not uniformity,” the Keller letter said.
Senior Planner Jerry Olivera said the lot standards were most recently passed in 1974.
Early in the hearing, Shanks expressed concern that the two smaller lots would be built out to the maximum size allowed.
Later, Shanks said the Planning Commission almost split on the variance request. He said the Planning Commission sees a lot of Old Town properties because there are a lot of areas that are unclear and do not fit the code.
Shanks ultimately made the motion to allow the variance, but setting specific same sizes for the lots that Rothman had originally proposed.
