Shooting a white elephant: Part 2, the blunderbuss
[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]
In yesterday’s post, via the Town Manager’s April 28, 2009 Report to Town Council (pdf) in Woodside, California, we met patient homeowner Steve Jobs, who has for eight years been seeking to demolish a property he owns and plainly regards as a white elephant, a rambling 17,000-square foot Spanish Colonial Revival built in 1925 and now falling to pieces:
As quoted in a Fortune online article:
Apple’s CEO bought the 30-room hacienda in 1984, the year the Mac was released, and camped out there for the better part of a decade before moving to
Before the Jackling house: Jobs camping out in an apartment, 1982
He found the sprawling mansion a cold and dreary place to live. He has called it “one of the biggest abominations of a house I’ve ever seen” and says it will cost more to restore than to replace. At one point he offered to give it to anyone willing to pay to have it moved.
Cue the Phantom of the Opera music!
Roughly five years ago, Mr. Jobs probably thought he was done with the judicial review:
The Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) concluded that demolition of the Residence would have significantly impacted an historic resource.
Once one finds the house historic, it’s hard to claim no impact when you tear it down J.
Thus it is demonstrated
So was Mr. Jobs compelled to care and nurture his struldbrug, to prop up its immortality through artificial house-support?
What do you mean you can see I’ve had work done?
No. He could tear it down if he took some affordable measures to preserve the past:
The Final EIR included mitigation measures requiring the applicant:
[1] to develop historical and photographic documentation of the structure and
[2] to employ a qualified salvage company to remove and store features of the home identified as significant by an architectural historian.
Both are reasonable – the kind of thing that represents a modest imposition on the owner. Sure, it’ll cost a few bucks, but not a lot.
The master kitchen: oversize and under0maintained
Nevertheless, snapping pictures and boxing faucets would not be equivalent to preserving the house:
The Final EIR nonetheless concluded that these measures would not have reduced the impact of demolition of the Residence to a less than significant level.
The EIR had to look at alternatives, one by one, to see if they might work:
The Final EIR also examined five alternatives to the Project, focusing primarily on restoring and modifying the Residence to varying degrees in an attempt to avoid the significant impact of demolishing the Residence while still accomplishing most of the basic Project objectives associated with constructing a new single-family home.
Feasible is defined by CEQA as “capable of being accomplished in a successful manner within a reasonable period of time, taking into account economic, environmental, legal, social and technological factors.” CEQA Guidelines Section 15364.
1. An as-new home. Mr. Jobs is evidently entitled to have a new or as-new home on his property.
2. No ‘material’ increase in costs. Mr. Jobs’ cost for the as-new home may not cost ‘much more’ (our phrase) that what he was planning to build(*).
For all you know, I tied these knots myself
The EIR Addendum also suggests that the cost of this alternative (which could be comparable to the cost of Alternative 2A, which also involves interior renovation of the Residence) may make it economically infeasible since it could exceed the Project costs by approximately $5 million.
The definition of feasibility is further spelled out:
Here’s what you need to do
The CEQA findings would need to confirm that there are no feasible mitigation measures to avoid or lessen the significant impact of demolishing the Residence and, as to each alternative, verify:
1. That the alternative would not avoid the significant, unavoidable impact to the historic resource and/or,
2. That the alternative would not meet most of the basic Project objectives and/or
3. That the alternative would be infeasible for:
a. Economic
b. Legal, social
c. Technological or other reasons.
The statement of overriding considerations would also need to set forth the specific benefits of the proposed Project that outweigh its unavoidable adverse environmental effect(s).
Thus, if you own a struldbrug building in the State of
To be shut it must be ut-
terly without redeeming social importance?
Which, in 2004, the Town Council duly found:
The Town Council [at the same time] adopted a statement of overriding considerations based on General Plan policies which encourage and promote protection of open space. The Town Council found that demolition of the Residence would have resulted in construction of a smaller home, thereby resulting in an overall increase in the amount of open space on the Property.
Having thus touched all the bases, as it thought, the town signed off:
Are your asses covered?
After public hearing, the Planning Commission certified the Final EIR and approved the demolition permit in June 2004.
Who put Mr. Jobs through this ringer?
Don’t mess with the Friends of the Jackling House, kid, or you’ll get hurt
Enter the Committee of the Self-Appointed:
Hello, we’re here to tell you not to tear this house down
The Planning Commission’s actions were appealed to the Town Council by several citizens and the daughter of a former owner of the Residence. In December 2004, the Town Council considered the appeal.
As we’ve seen, the Town Council rejected their appeal, so enter another Committee of the Self-Appointed.
Unrelated to the merits of their case, I wonder how this group had standing to intervene judicially. Perhaps it was their cool name:
A group of individuals calling themselves Uphold our Heritage filed suit claiming that the Town Council’s findings on alternatives and its statement of overriding considerations were not supported by substantial evidence in the record. No challenge was brought to the Final EIR itself.
As we saw in Part 1, Uphold our Heritage won on procedure (lack of evidence) and now, three years later, the Town is considering the substance, based on an evaluation of five choices. As they put it on their Web site, Friends of the Jackling House:
On May 12, 2009, the Woodside Town Council may vote to wiggle around a string of Court rulings AGAINST granting demolition of this historic mansion. There is still no adequate evidence to grant demolition.
[Snip]
Mr. Jobs’ attorney’s case for demolition this time seems to be that all alternatives are too costly for his client, and therefore infeasible. At a preliminary meeting held April 28th, the attorney for the National Trust for Historic Preservation testified that other criteria must also be weighed. And even visibly nervous Town Council members questioned dubious cost estimates put forward by Jobs’ attorney and his team of paid consultants.
Although we all know about those paid consultants, the fact remains that no other cost estimates have been proffered. To challenge Mr. Jobs’ estimates with your own is one kind of argumentation to challenge them by ad hominem attacks is both unpersuasive to the typical bystander and likely unavailing to the town council.
In the context of American enterprise, historian Tim LeCain wrote Council members of his outrage that Steve Jobs would contemplate tearing down this mansion. “Jackling’s contribution to the 20th Century was cheap and abundant copper. Put simply, Daniel Jackling ‘wired’
Or if the CEO of Verizon would today … tear down a house once occupied by Alexander Graham Bell?”
Mr. Watson, come here, someone is trying to tear down my house
Now that we’ve sacrificed wiring and planes and telephones on the altars of past titans, what were the five alternatives presented, and what has the town council found?
[Continued tomorrow in Part 3.]
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