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Family home needs permits, water, power
For about 80 years a tiny white house sat above Erbes Road near Hillcrest Drive in Thousand Oaks. More recently, those driving by the little cottage could see children, a swing set and a small white Maltese puppy playing in the yard. Then, about three years ago a knock on the door by a city staff member who delivered nine pages of code violations changed everything, Chris Stark explained. They realized it would take a lot of work to get their old 560square-foot home up to code. So, they figured they might as well add another 100 square feet of living space and a two car garage, Stark said. They went to the city and received permits to make the changes they wanted to make, but when they began the new construction, they realized the home they were living in had bigger problems than they knew before they started such as serious termite damage. One thing led to another and as the job grew bigger and more complicated, the family kept adjusting. They just wanted a good, safe place where their family could live, he said. They ended up moving into a 24-foot trailer on the property as they continued construction. Then, about eight months ago the building inspectors came out and a bad situation got worse. "The construction undertaken on the property was substantially out of compliance with the building permits they were issued," said John Prescott, director of community development. The city also shut off the power to the site at that time, Stark said. "There were safety issues with the power at the time of inspection," Prescott said. That left Stark, his wife Veronica Balogh and their daughters ages 7 and 2 without electricity. They were already without running water. "We were told it was against code for the city to allow us to have a temporary power pole if we did not have a building permit, and since they took our permit we could not have power," Balogh said. During the heat wave this summer Balogh called the city and begged for electricity to help her family survive the high temperatures, she said. She does not believe there is a city code that prohibited them from having electricity, she said. She also insisted there was no safety issue since her husband is an electrical contractor. The city refused and the temperature inside the family trailer went over 100 degrees, she said. "My family couldn't take it any more," Stark said. They moved from the trailer to an apartment in Simi Valley, Stark said. "They forced us out because it is an eyesore," Balogh said. To pay for the apartment, on top of the uninhabitable house's mortgage, Balogh has had to add to the family's income by cleaning houses, she said. "I need someone to guide me through the permitting process. I don't know where we're supposed to go from here and I can't afford to keep supplying them with more information," Stark said. The reason the original permits were no longer valid is because so much more was being done to the house than the permits allowed that a precise planning of design application (PPD) was needed, Prescott said. PPDs are required for such changes as when more than 500 square feet or a second story is added or if there is a change to the roofline, Prescott said. About 200 PPDs go through the city each year. "They need to go through the proper procedure," Prescott said. "I don't think they have a complete application. They've been made aware of what is needed to complete it." Prescott said this situation is quite unusual. Most cases do not take this long to go through. The what, he said, was not a complicated process. "It took a long time trying to get them to accept the fact they must go through the process," Prescott said. Recent attempts to get answers from the city have not been successful, Stark said. "The bottom line is I'm at the mercy of the city and I don't know where to go anymore," Stark said. |
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