Building Permits

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to begin enforcing a law that has been on the books since 1981 that gives the city some authority to deny building permits for conversions of apartments into condominiums. The move comes after 12,000 rent-controlled apartments have been converted into condos or demolished in the last five years -- 8,000 of them since 2005.

Amid criticism that Los Angeles building officials lack firm policies on expediting construction projects, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Wednesday proposed a change in the law to better define which projects should be fast-tracked and which should have fees waived. In a letter to City Atty.

Facing criticism that city building permit officials gave special treatment to politically connected applicants, the Los Angeles Building and Safety Department announced Tuesday that it is drafting new standards to ensure that all members of the public are treated the same. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa requested the action in response to a Times report that dozens of construction projects sought by political insiders had been assigned to a little-known "case management unit."

The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety appears to have overcharged the public by millions of dollars for permits because of questionable financial practices, City Controller Laura Chick alleged in an audit released Thursday. The report is the second critical audit of the agency issued by Chick this week; the earlier review found lax enforcement of building codes and a backlog of thousands of required inspections.

Despite an increase in housing production in much of Southern California, builders statewide obtained 20.6% fewer permits in April compared with a year earlier. In April, permits were pulled for 11,119 single-family homes, a number about even with the previous month but down 25% from the year before. Meanwhile, permits for condominiums and apartments totaled 3,476, down 37.6% from the previous month and off 3.4% from 2005.

Cellphone towers may be ugly, but that's not reason enough for cities to block their construction, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. In the nation's first appellate ruling on an increasingly contentious local issue, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down parts of a La Canada Flintridge law that had allowed the city to withhold building permits on public rights of way for purely aesthetic reasons.

California cities and counties cannot overcharge developers for building inspection and permit fees as a way to fatten their coffers, the state Supreme Court ruled recently. In a Dec. 22 opinion involving Rancho Cucamonga, the court upheld state law saying building fees must be based on the "estimated reasonable costs of providing the services for which the fees are charged."

County supervisors voted Tuesday to extend for a year a program that waives building permit fees for residents whose homes were destroyed or damaged in the 2003 Old and Grand Prix fires. The county estimated that about 200 of 867 eligible homeowners had requested waivers, which apply only to the original size of the house. The program could cost up to $1 million if all remaining homeowners apply.

U.S. housing starts rose 0.2% in May as low mortgage rates and an improved job market kept home builders on pace for their best year since 1978. Builders broke ground at an annual rate of 2.009 million housing units last month, the most since February, after 2.005 million in April, the Commerce Department said Thursday. New claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, and manufacturing contracted in the Philadelphia region this month for the first time in two years, other reports showed.

Funding for road improvements must be in place before homes can be built in fast-growing southwestern Riverside County, according to a legal settlement announced Wednesday by the county and the city of Temecula. The agreement, which prohibits building permits from being issued before the traffic effects of proposed housing developments have been dealt with, settles a two-year feud over the county's general plan.