Signal Tribune Newspaper

BY NICK DIAMANTIDES
Staff Writer

Two vacant million-dollar homes on Hill Street in Signal Hill may soon have driveways, utilities and occupants. On Monday afternoon, the Long Beach Board of Examiners gave the new owner of the properties– Tarzana-based 6 Angels LLC– one month to show that progress is being made to obtain the necessary easements for driveways and utility connections. Brian Angel, spokesperson for the real estate investment firm, expressed confidence in his company’s ability to obtain the easements.
No one but an occasional transient has ever lived in the five-year-old houses across the street from Signal Hill’s Discovery Well Park. Each home has five bedrooms, a three-car garage and a panoramic view of Southern California that encompasses the San Gabriel Mountains, the ocean and Palos Verdes Peninsula.
The problem is that the houses, located at 2910 and 2914 Hill Street, have no access to the public street, no utilities and no certificates of occupancy. Although the two homes sit within the city limits of Long Beach, the portion of Hill Street adjacent to their front yards is in Signal Hill city limits. The man who built the houses in 2003 never obtained street access or easements to connect electric, gas and water lines to the property.
The two homes have changed ownership several times in the past five years. In 2006, two groups of real estate investors purchased the homes and tried without success to get the necessary driveway and utility easements. Six Angels acquired the properties in April of this year from Farmers & Merchants Bank for a total of about $800,000.
In early July, the code enforcement division of the City of Long Beach gave 6 Angels until August 3 to begin work on the code violations present in both houses and to show that progress was being made on obtaining the driveway and utility easements. 6 Angels appealed the order issued by the code enforcement division.
During the appeal hearing, Angel told the board that since his company had only owned the houses for about four months, he should be given a little more time to show that one day soon the homes could be legally occupied. “I have hired an attorney to fine my easement papers,” he said. “Because the two lots and two adjacent lots were at one time all owned by one entity, I am allowed to obtain what is called an ‘easement by necessity,’ which means the adjacent property owners cannot deny me access to the two homes.”
Angel explained that the adjacent property owners were asking for what he considered an exorbitant price for the easements, which drove him to ask the courts to grant him the easements instead. “The process takes about three months, and my attorney is right now preparing the papers to file,” he said. “Meanwhile, the city (Long Beach) has basically told me they won’t allow me to do any work on the code violations until I figure out my access issues.”
According to Tom Slater, Long Beach’s code enforcement officer, the buildings have deficiencies in their electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems that must be remedied, but since the homes were constructed about five years ago, the building permits have expired.
“I have no problem applying for the building permits, but changes have occurred in the building codes since the original permits were issued,” Angel said. “But the head of the building department said we could comply with the codes that were in effect when the original permits were issued.”
Angel stressed that remedying the building code deficiencies could not happen until the easements were obtained. Wayne Ballinger- former partner of a company called Waymar Homes- built the houses in spite of warnings he received from Long Beach and Signal Hill officials that there were major problems with driveway access and utility easements. Signal Hill officials have refused to grant driveway access to Hill Street for two reasons: It was not possible to turn a vehicle in and out of the driveways without hitting the median island; and the steepness of Hill Street would prevent drivers exiting the driveways from seeing approaching cars.
Angel said that his attorney is preparing court papers to obtain driveway access to the homes from their backyards on a path that would connect them to Orizaba Avenue. He is also proposing a plan that might persuade Signal Hill officials to grant driveway access to Hill Street. “I have a person by the name of Brian Wilkins who has been meeting with the City Signal Hill to present a plan for driveway access,” he said. The plan calls for carving an additional lane for traffic out of the two front yards. The lane would allow cars to enter and exit the driveways without impeding Hill Street traffic. Angel told the board that it would be several weeks before he knew what Signal Hill thought about that idea.
The board unanimously voted to give 6 Angels a month to show that progress was being made in obtaining the easements. Board Chair Christopher Brown said this was probably the beginning of a months-long process during which Angel would be regularly reporting to the board on the progress his company was making. Brown warned that if it ever became obvious that easements could not be obtained or code violations could not be remedied, the board would be forced to order the demolition of the two homes.

Share This