For two posts now we’ve been following, via the Town Manager’s April 28, 2009 Report to Town Council (pdf) in Woodside, California, the eight-year saga of patient homeowner Steve Jobs, who is merely seeking to do what 99.9% of American would think an inalienable right, namely to demolish his own house, a 1925 white elephant crumbling even as the zoning process grinds on:

Not located on Sunset Boulevard:

The Jacking House, by Joanthan Habner

When last we left our hero, he’d been sent off to document, exhaustively, both the cost of building a new house and the cost of doing five other things.  

1. Do nothing.  Leave the house untouched.  Without a trace of irony, the report observes

The EIR Addendum concludes that Alternative 1 would not meet the basic Project objectives of replacing the Residence with a smaller single-family home that comports with the Town Code –

While it’s by no means the hinge point of this decision, it appears the current house is very much non-conforming, existing in its larger-than-permitted and un-earthquake-proofed state only because its construction antedated those changes. 

– and contains a modern floor plan and amenities consistent with current standards and expectations.

If the Jackling House burned down, you couldn’t rebuild it tomorrow, and if you did, you couldn’t live in it because of the earthquake risk.  I tend to think Daniel Jackling would snort, “Case closed!”

Daniel Jackling, Utah statue

“If it’s in the way, bulldoze it!”

Unsurprisingly, if Mr. Jobs does nothing, the house will slowly fall down:

Let me Usher this house out of existence

The EIR Addendum also finds that this alternative may not result in the protection of the historic Residence due to the ongoing deterioration of the Residence and the lack of assurances that the Residence would be restored and used if the Project is not approved.

Some people, not unreasonably, suspect and allege that Mr. Jobs has been deliberately not maintaining the house so as to change the facts on the ground – but as against that, if you know you want to tear down a house, why would you spend any money that (1) at best is lost and non-recoverable, or (2) at worst simply makes it harder for you to achieve your objective?

2. Restore the existing house.  Renovate back to habitability and a high standard. 

Since this alternative would primarily alter the interior of the Residence and leave the exterior of the Residence intact, the EIR Addendum concludes that Alternative 2 would avoid the significant, unavoidable impact to the historic resource.

This is what the Friends of the Jackling House would prefer, but it has two problems. 

A. Even if restored, Mr. Jobs does not want to live in that structure

However, the EIR Addendum goes on to state that it does not appear that this alternative would meet most of the basic Project objectives of replacing the Residence with a smaller home that contains a modern floor plan and amenities.

Hallway with refrigerator

As the modern American home continues to evolve, some properties become functionally obsolescent to the point where their skeleton is inadequate to modern use.  Some rooms are too big; others too small.  Plumbing and wiring have to be completely ripped out and replaced.  Insulation may be difficult, climate control impossible, energy efficiency a pipe dream. 

B. It will cost more than building a new house

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.

Some properties just need to go somewhere to die.  Against that inevitable age, we will preserve those whose existence links so strongly to our history that money is no object – and when money is no object, then it must be government who pays, not the private owner.  That’s one thing eminent domain is for.

If you Revere it, you must spare no expense

3. Restore it with an addition.  It is then proposed that Mr. Jobs build a new wing – a new house to which the current one is appended, almost like a clone or offshoot.

This restoration alternative [is] similar to Alternative 2, but with modifications to the existing Residence to create a more conventional floor plan, as well as a major 16,000 square foot addition to the Residence to include a new living area, office suite and fitness area.

To save a 17,000 square foot house by building on the same site a new 16,000 square foot house seems carrying the preservation mission far into the domain of new development.  Indeed, if it worked, imagine how many magnates would use that as a means of winkling an oversize house onto their white-elephant’s lot!

I have a Hearst for expansion

The EIR Addendum concludes that this alternative would not avoid the significant, unavoidable impact to the historic Residence or meet most of the basic Project objectives.

You mean, that Mr. Jobs might not want a 16,000 square foot addition?

The EIR Addendum also suggests that the estimated $20 million cost of this alternative (using the conservative Final EIR restoration cost of $4.9 million plus nearly $15 million for the 16,000 square foot addition based upon the per square foot estimate for the new home) may make it economically infeasible.

Translation: Next!

4. Restore it and move it elsewhere on-site.  Shift it on the six acres and build new elsewhere.  This alternative to demolition hypothesizes that, like a multi-segmented mobile home, the Jackling House could be trundled to a less conspicuous spot (and once transplanted, preserved against the elements), freeing up well-situated land for Mr. Jobs to build his new house.

Back then the challenge was building it …

The EIR Addendum concludes that this alternative would avoid the significant adverse impact to the historic Residence, and may, depending on its specific characteristics, meet most of the basic Project objectives.

If possible, this would be pleasing, but then there’s that problem: the white elephant has to squat somewhere, and the land is finite:

However, the EIR Addendum concludes that this alternative may be infeasible for legal and/or economic reasons because it:

[Legal] Would exceed the maximum amount of development allowed on the Property per the Town Code

[Economic] and is estimated to cost between $14.8 million (using the conservative estimated Final EIR restoration cost of $6.6 million plus the estimated $8.2 million Project cost) and $21.5 million (using the applicant’s estimated $13.3 million restoration cost).

In short, there’s just not enough room on-site.

Too tight a squeeze?

5. Move the house and reassemble it somewhere else.  For many of us, this would be by far the happiest outcome.  Homes do get relocated and live happy lives once they have moved.  [I find it hugely ironic that Suzette Kelo's pink house, which was the subject of the landmark Supreme Court decision Kelo v. New London on eminent domain taking, was itself moved into the site of so much contention.]

Readers have already seen, in Hermit Crab Housing, that when a more modest and economically obsolescent existing structure can be relocated, it saves costs, creates valuable new affordable housing, and is much greener than demolition and landfill. 

The EIR Addendum concurs with the Final EIR that the analysis of this alternative is “highly speculative” and depends on factors such as the feasibility of moving the Residence –

What usually moves, however, are small houses, not an elephant train like this one:

– which would have to be accomplished in pieces, down a narrow driveway and onto a sloping road with overarching trees and utility lines.

That kind of dismantling and reassembly is normally reserved for Greek or Egyptian temples (as at Philae or Abu Simbel), not for Spanish Colonial Revival style homes.

Nice face lift

Oh by the way, there’s another problem – nowhere to go:

Assuming that it is physically possible to relocate the Residence and that a suitable off-site location could be found (no such site has been identified despite the applicant’s marketing efforts),

Talk about a killer parenthetical!

Attack of the killer parentheticals!

[Hence, if pigs could fly…  – Ed.] the Project could avoid the significant, unavoidable impact to the historic Residence and achieve the basic Project objectives.

The Town Council staff thus prepared a handy chart comparing the alternatives, which in the interests of clarity I’ve reformatted (without changing any of the Yes/ No/ Maybe conclusions):

After this exhaustive exercise in proving the blindingly obvious, the EIR found that things physically feasible cost lots more money, and things that didn’t cost more money neither built a new house nor stopped the current house from crumbling. 

Ladies and gentlemen of the electronic Town Council, you have now heard the staff’s report.

How would you vote?

Remember, then Friends of the Jackling House will be watching:

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.

Before you vote, let me add the most ironic part:

It is important to point out that in acting on this application, the Town Council’s authority is limited. The Council may approve or deny the demolition permit. The Council does not have authority to direct that one of the restoration alternatives described below be implemented.

Because directing such an action would be equivalent to a taking, and that would cost the town a lot of money.

I wonder, did Mr. Jobs realize that if he submitted plans for a big new house, such a projection might cost a high enough figure that it would make salvaging the Jackling house economically feasible?  Might he have gamed the new-house price down?

Council members asked why cost estimates for renovation of the Jackling House appeared so high, while projected costs for a proposed new house for Mr. Jobs appeared preposterously low.  Will there really be very low-grade surfaces in the new master bathroom? many wondered in disbelief.

Now you see it …

Remember, the demolition approval has nothing to do with the application for a new house.  Mr. Jobs could then change his mind.

… Now you don’t

It’s my mansion and will die if I want it to

Die if I want it to.

Die if I want it to.

The end?

UPDATE: The council voted Yes:

Woodside council votes to let Steve Jobs move forward with demolition of historic mansion

By Jessica Bernstein-Wax

Daily News Staff Writer

Posted: 05/13/2009 12:21:41 AM PDT

Updated: 05/13/2009 12:21:45 AM PDT

The Woodside Town Council on Tuesday voted to let Apple CEO Steve Jobs move forward with plans to demolish his historic 14-bedroom house in the Woodside hills.

In a 6-1 vote, with Mayor Peter Mason opposing, council members instructed town staff to update an environmental impact report and draft a demolition permit, which would enable Jobs to knock down the 17,250-square-foot Spanish revival mansion known as the Jackling House and build a much smaller home on the property. Those items will return to the council at its regular meeting June 9.

“I love old Spanish revival homes — I have a couple of them myself, and I’ve restored them,” Council Member Dave Tanner said at the meeting. “I can tell you it’s a thing of love.  I didn’t see any reason to try to restore or maintain this house,” he said of the Jackling House.

Given time, I will post more on this saga, as there are some interesting/ entertaining side notes about local land use, the futility doctrine (remedies need not be pursued if they are futile), and how the comment process can be used. 

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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 Palo Alto.

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.

Reading between the lines, the EIR’s feasibility determination was constrained in two ways:

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 California, you are first imposed a renovator’s Hippocratic Oath – “do no harm unless it’s absolutely necessary” – and then required to show what in another age was called “redeeming social importance”:

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’ America. .. That Steve Jobs – a man whose entire career has been built on devices that are essentially useless absent our copper-based electric power grid – proposes to tear down the home of the very man whose own innovations made that electric grid possible, strikes me as a particularly egregious case of historical ingratitude and amnesia ….  I would ask Mr. Jobs … whether William Boeing would have so determinedly sought to raze the homes of Wilbur and Orville Wright?

Boeing, Boeing … gone? 

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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Can Mephistopheles be thwarted?

“Can you believe the nerve of Steve Jobs?”

“What’d he do?”

“Moves into the neighborhood, immediately announces he intends to demolish a lovely 6,000 square foot house so he can build a rambling anachronistic 17,000 square foot house, three times as large.”

“No!”

“The old house was invisible in the landscape; the new one’s going to stand out.”

“No!”

“It’s right along the San Andreas Fault, not earthquake-proofed at all, forming a hazard to the neighbors.”

“No!”

“Yes.  And the neighbors are up in arms.”

“Actually, you’ve got everything backwards.  That 17,000 square-foot white elephant?  That’s what he wants to demolish, to build a new house a third the size, and the neighbors want to preserve it.”

“No!”

Can you see the bull’s-eye painted on it?

In some locales, a man’s home is his castle – except when he wants to tear it down.

For eight years, Steve Jobs has been trying to tear down the white elephant he no longer occupies.  Or rather, he’s been trying to obtain legal permission to tear it down.  Why he hasn’t yet secured that authority illuminates, even if in reverse, the challenges of changing property configuration or use in modern urban environments. 

Does the owner of a property have a duty to save it?  Even if it’s historic?

Am I historic?  Or am I doomed?

By the time you finish this blog post, we should know the answer, as the Town of Woodside will take a vote on precisely this question.

Eight years of litigation … reviewed on fast-forward

Let’s tell the story using the nearest thing to a dispassionate treatment I’m likely to find on short notice – the Town Manager’s April 28, 2009 Report to Town Council (pdf), which sets the stage:

Steven Jobs (Jobs) has renewed his request for a demolition permit for the Jackling Estate (Residence) located at 460 Mountain Home Road (Property). If issued, Jobs plans to demolish the Residence and build a new single-family home on the Property.  Previously Jobs applied for a demolition permit in 2001 to demolish the Residence. At that time the Town’s consultants determined that the Jackling Estate was an historic resource –

– meaning that, like an endangered species, was entitled to building-permit sanctuary and the owner’s unilateral ability to do as he pleased was suspended pending judicial review.

– and the Town thus prepared an environmental impact report for the project pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

As I’ve previously posted, historic designation can make a building into a struldbrug, immortal even if decrepit … which the Jobs/ Jackling House has become. 

Mr. Jackling died in 1956 but his house lives on

The Town Council’s December 2004 approval of a demolition permit for the Residence was challenged.

Looking forward to demolishing my house: Steve Jobs, 2005

Even though the town saw no problem with demolition, concerned citizens intervened … and won a round:

The trial court ruled in favor of the Petitioners –

Actually, two rounds:

– and the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court ruling in January 2007.

However, the preservationists’ win was not conclusive but procedural:

In doing so, the Court of Appeal reasoned that the Town Council’s findings rejecting certain restoration alternatives as economically infeasible were not supported by substantial evidence in the record since there was no comparative cost data of these alternatives compared to the cost of the new home.

Sidebar: when disputes are adjudicated judicially, what matters is not necessarily the truth but more typically the documentary evidence – which Jobs proceeded to supply:

In June 2008, Jobs renewed his application for the demolition permit, providing the cost information that the Court of Appeal found lacking in the prior application for the demolition permit.

The white elephant, as seen from space

Using the technology of an upstart Apple competitor and neighbor, let’s find the property from space

On the peninsula, up in the hills

The approximate 6 acre Property is located in the central portion of the Town, west of Interstate 280 and south of State Route 84. The Property is designated Residential-Environmentally Sensitive Area (“R/ESA”) by the Town’s General Plan. The environmentally sensitive designation is intended to identify areas that have significant development constraints. The designation applies here because of the Property’s proximity to the San Andreas Fault.

In fact, the Property is very close to the Fault itself, a fact not irrelevant when considering whether its renovation is economically feasible.

The Property is improved with the Residence as well as associated accessory structures, including a cottage, garage/water tower, and aviary. The Residence is a 14 bedroom, 17,250 square foot structure –

Enormous, in other words.

Wings and ells and grounds and things …

Nice old Spanish Colonial Revival

– that was built in 1925 for Daniel Jackling, who was a key figure in the American copper mining industry. Mr. Jackling lived in the Residence from its construction until his death in 1956.

A visionary entrepreneur of another era: Daniel Jackling

Detour into historical irony: judging from how he made his money, Mr. Jackling himself was a man whom his house’s current defenders would probably not approve.  From Wikipedia:

Daniel Cowan Jackling (August 14, 1869 – March 13, 1956), was an American mining and metallurgical engineer who pioneered the exploitation of low-grade porphyry copper ores at Bingham Canyon, Utah.

Jackling was educated in mining and metallurgy disciplines at the Missouri School of Mines in Rolla, Missouri, now known as Missouri University of Science and Technology. In 1898, Jackling and Robert C. Gemmell made a detailed examination of this copper property. They recommended open pit mining, using steam shovels to load railroad cars, a novel idea at the time. In 1903, Jackling organized the Utah Copper Company to put his plan into action. The mine proved to be profitable, and open-pit mining of low-grade copper deposits came to dominate the industry by mid-century.

Some years back, Nancy and I toured Bingham Canyon Mine; it’s a marvel of technology and scale, and it is in fact highly environmental (given that you want to excavate tons and tons of copper ore), but it’s hardly esthetic.

Daniel Jackling’s idea of “environmentally appropriate”: the mighty Bingham Canyon Mine

Though successful Jackling himself is not ‘historic’ within the meaning of our story; he was just rich, perhaps a Jobs of his day, and able to indulge his pride:

The Residence was designed by George Washington Smith, a leading architect in the Spanish Colonial Revival style in the United States, and contains many unique copper fixtures reflective of Jackling’s work in the mining industry.

Like many of its analogs in other states, California’s Environmental Quality Act throws out a broad net to capture places and buildings that may be uniquely or importantly representative of the state’s heritage.  California being among the newest states, it has very few truly old buildings.  Whereas in my Cambridge neighborhood 1925 would be considered nothing special, out there it’s old. 

The Town’s consultant determined that the Residence was eligible for listing on the CRHR [1] based on its association with Daniel Jackling and also [2] because it embodies the features and qualities of the Spanish Colonial Revival style.  A peer review of the Town consultant’s findings concurred fully with the consultant’s conclusions.

Laws like the CEQA are designed to allow broad discretion to the administrative body tasked with looking at individual cases.  Being written with loosely definable fuzzy-boundary words like ‘reasonable,’ ‘feasible,’ ’sensible,’ they are open invitations to fulmination, explication, and litigation.

I’m troubled by the lack of boundaries

The owner as renovator: Jobs’s history with the property

Mr. Jobs is no Stevie-come-lately – he’s been here for over twenty-five years:

Steve Jobs, 1980s: never not smug?

Jobs purchased the Property in the early 1980s and lived in the Residence for approximately ten years, before renting it out to others.

Presumably Mr. Jobs found the house, if not unlivable, at least unappealing, a conclusion evidently shared by others as well:

For over a decade [Since 1999 or before – Ed.], the Residence has been vacant.

Steve Jobs, 1999: “I don’t live there any more”

Mr. Jobs has by now laid out in detail what house he intends to build, even though not required to and even though approval at this stage will not be permission to develop.  As described, it certainly sounds both more livable and more suitable:

The renewed application includes conceptual design plans that propose construction of a modern 6,000 square foot home in place of the existing Residence. The plans were prepared by the architectural firm of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and depict the new home being located in substantially the same location on the site as the existing Residence.  The applicant also submitted additional, detailed cost estimates for construction of the new residence –

He’s even gone a step further, calculating out the cost of numerous things he really doesn’t want to do:

– and, for comparative purposes, cost estimates for an extensive renovation of the Residence to meet modern standards.  

According to these cost estimates, prepared by Baker pre-Construction Company [Same company for both scenarios, to eliminate bias – Ed.], the cost of the new residence is estimated to be approximately $8.2 million while the cost of renovating the existing Residence to modern standards is estimated to be approximately $13.3 million.

Having thus proffered evidence that renovation would be $5.1 million more expensive than demolishing and building new:

Free iPhone if you let me tear down my house: Steve Jobs, 2008

In June 2008, Jobs renewed his application for the demolition permit.

Try, try again

Now what’s before the Town, and for that matter, why hasn’t the town approved it already?

[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]

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