Garages

His pristine Ferrari 512 BBi "Boxer" sits in the middle of Holger Schubert's living room in Brentwood, right next to stylish furniture, a built-in bookcase and a flat-screen TV that slides on tracks past walls of glass that frame an ocean view. But Los Angeles officials are about to slam shut forever the garage door that leads to the city's most extravagant parking space City planners have withdrawn permission for Schubert to use a bridge to connect his Ferrari's third-floor resting spot with North Tigertail Road.

Some of the most extensive damage and loss of life from recent earthquakes in California have occurred in apartment houses where dwellings sit on top of a ground-level parking garage or a storefront. The shaking undermines the bottom floor, causing the buildings to collapse and in some cases to pancake. After years of study and debate, San Francisco on Thursday formally adopted a new law requiring owners to retrofit thousands of these so-called wood-frame soft-story buildings, marking the most sweeping seismic regulations in California in years.

Re "L.A. says it needs their spaces," May 24 If Los Angeles needs a solution for scarce parking, it need only emulate Santa Monica, where one finds public garages on nearly every block in the densest retail areas. How to pay for it? Impose a tax on the rent paid by businesses that create more parking demand than off-street spaces. The tax money would be earmarked by law to pay the interest and principal on bonds used to buy land and build garages. Taxed businesses would gain because customers tend to shop and eat where the parking is convenient.

USC's Viterbi School of Engineering is launching an early-stage technology accelerator to help student and alumni entrepreneurs start their fledgling technology companies in the Los Angeles area. The newly created Viterbi Startup Garage is designed to foster an environment where start-ups could flourish in Southern California with financial resources and business expertise provided by the school and its partners, United Talent Agency and the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Whittier has lowered the boom on property owners who have converted garages into apartments, in violation of city zoning laws. The City Council on Tuesday night approved a plan that will require these landlords to evict their tenants and pay moving costs and any rent increases the tenants incur for up to a year. Officials said the plan would eliminate the illegal apartments without throwing the tenants into the streets.

Los Angeles' top budget analysts are recommending that the city privatize 10 public parking garages to help close a nearly $200-million budget shortfall, hoping that such a deal could net between $100 million and $200 million. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recommended privatizing half a dozen garages in his budget proposal in April but met resistance from the City Council, in part, because of the political backlash that occurred in Chicago after that city auctioned off garages and meters, driving up parking rates.

The city, acting under a 1988 state Supreme Court ruling, will conduct an additional environmental impact report for two four-story parking garages planned at Santa Monica College. The last-minute decision to do the additional report was announced at Tuesday's City Council meeting, where the project had been scheduled to be discussed. Now, the project will be put on hold for at least three months, Planning Director Paul Berlant said. The environmental study will examine alternatives to the garages, such as a shuttle service.

The garage may be the final frontier for homeowners smitten by makeover mania. It's hard to pick a household space with, at least to neighbors and passersby, a more public persona. Nowhere do mess and clutter speak louder about the occupant's organizational skills and tastes, or lack thereof. With more than 65 million one-, two- or three-car garages in the United States, according to the Census Bureau, the potential for residential eyesores is enormous.

Citing critical parking shortages in parts of Los Angeles, City Councilman Mike Feuer has called for the city to explore a new way to raise money for garage construction. Feuer introduced a motion last week before the City Council that instructs the city administrative officer, the Department of Transportation and the chief legislative analyst to study the idea of issuing bonds to raise money for garage construction.

The fourth and final parking garage at Northridge Fashion Center has been slated for demolition, mall managers said Thursday. Lloyd Miller, general manager, said a garage on the east side of the mall off Tampa Avenue will be torn down within 10 days for safety reasons. The garage was heavily damaged in the Jan. 17 quake. The rubble of one garage, which collapsed in the quake, has already been removed. The others were left standing, but were structurally damaged.

As the launch of the second season of the History Channel's “Counting Cars” nears, Danny “The Count” Koker can likely expect an increase in visitors to Count's Kustoms , the Las Vegas garage where he restores and sells classic cars and motorcycles. Koker's shop is where most of the filming is done for “Counting Cars,” which returns April 9. In this garage, “The Count” and his team have been working with Ziggy Marley on the restoration of the last vehicle owned by his father, reggae star Bob Marley.

At around 1 p.m. Tuesday, Sean Bohrman of Burger Records picked up the phone in his label's office and pleaded for mercy. “Can you call me back in a couple hours?” he asked a reporter. “We just drove 20 hours straight from Texas after South by Southwest. We got home like an hour ago and haven't eaten anything, and honestly we're kind of delirious.” Clemency granted. At the annual Texas record industry bacchanal this month, the Fullerton-based garage punk label threw two days of official showcases and nine days of satellite parties before heading back to California in time for this weekend's Burgerama.

The all-new 2013 RAV4 just rolled through The Times' Test Garage, so here's a quick look at the latest crossover from Toyota. Watch this space for a full review from Highway 1 in the coming weeks. This is the fourth generation of the RAV4, a vehicle that competes with the Honda CR-V, Mazda CX-5, Chevrolet Equinox and Ford Escape. The biggest change from the earlier RAV4 is the redesigned interior and exterior. The new look has more sharp angles than before, and the tailgate now swings up rather than from the side.

Can you make money buying hidden treasures at yard and garage sales, then reselling them? The experts say you can, but don't expect it to be easy. Some advice from the pros: •Focus on a particular type of item. "Start with something you really like and have a strong interest in," recommended Aaron LaPedis, author of "The Garage Sale Millionaire. " "This will ensure that the treasure-hunting process will be much more fulfilling, as well as more profitable for you. " Research your specialty to see which items are most in demand.

The Frank Gehry-designed Schnabel House in Brentwood has sold for $9.5 million. The seller is Tony Award-winning Broadway producer Jon B. Platt, who restored the home, according to Times archives. Built in 1989, the five-bedroom, five-bathroom residence has been described as "a village that looks inward. " There is a main house, an office, a guesthouse and a garage-and-gym structure with a breezeway. Gehry, whose works include the Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown, is known for his "deconstructionist" style of architecture.

A woman accused of dropping her 7-month-old son from the fourth floor of a parking structure pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity Wednesday in an Orange County courtroom, a prosecutor said. Sonia Hermosillo, who has been charged with child assault and murder in the 2011 death of her son, was evaluated by three doctors before a judge found her fit to stand trial last year. Her attorney, Jacqueline Goodman, has said that her client suffers from " postpartum psychosis . " Hermosillo drove to Children's Hospital of Orange County on Aug. 22, 2011, and parked her car on the fourth floor of a parking structure, according to prosecutors.

Unable to resist the prospect of new parking spaces, city officials have agreed to kick in $3.25 million toward a 700-space garage being built by Chapman University. In return, residents and visitors will have guaranteed access to 350 parking spaces for the next 15 years, said Linda Boone, director of economic development. In contrast to the excited reception Chapman received from the city, the Orange Taxpayers Assn.

Several cracks near a support column have prompted the Orange County Transportation Authority to close its downtown park-and-ride garage for repairs and additional inspection, officials said Thursday. "These are small, minor repairs that we're talking about," OCTA spokeswoman Elaine Beno said. "We just wanted to be sure that the building is safe."

Deborah Raffin, a film actress, veteran of television miniseries and entrepreneur whose company, Dove Books-on-Tape, became a major force in the audio book industry, died Wednesday of leukemia at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. She was 59. She was diagnosed with the blood cancer about a year ago, said her brother, William. The blond, California-born actress first came to attention in the mid-1970s playing "pretty girl" roles in movies such as "Forty Carats" with Liv Ullman and "Once Is Not Enough," based on the salacious novel by Jacqueline Susann.

Norma Shearer's silk sheets sat for years in a Los Angeles garage, with no one to admire the embroidered monogram: NST, for Norma Shearer Thalberg. The starlet's Louis Vuitton steamer trunks waited in vain to voyage. One was dedicated solely to protecting Shearer's shoes - some of its 30 leather-trimmed drawers still bearing hand-written labels like "silvered lizard sandal evening" and "gold kid sandal evening high heels. " This was Golden Age glamour. It was an auction house's dream.