April 7th, 2008 -- Posted in La Times, Local LA Real Estate News |
Cultivating Culver City
The town’s become hip — for some, tragically so
By Martha Groves
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 7, 2008
Factories, oil derricks and houses were sprouting all over Southern California in 1913 when Harry H. Culver outlined his plan for a city midway between Los Angeles and Abbot Kinney’s seaside resort. “If you draw a straight line from [downtown’s] Story building to the oceanfront at Venice,” he told the gentlemen of the private California Club, “at the halfway mark you will find three intersecting electric lines — the logical center for . . . a town site.”
His Culver Investment Co. bused potential lot buyers to free picnics, awarded parcels to the parents of pretty babies and placed newspaper ads reading “All roads lead to Culver City.”
Nearly a century later, the electric rail lines are long gone, but Culver City, denigrated in years past as a backwater on the Westside, is starting to live up to its founder’s hype.
In recent years, dozens of galleries, design houses and architecture firms have moved in. Wine bars and upscale eateries — many with alfresco dining — are garnering raves, and more restaurants are in the works.
Young families and singles are replacing retirees, and developers are demolishing duplexes to build condos. Rising office rents reflect the discovery by high-tech, media and creative employers — Symantec, National Public Radio, the Tennis Channel, Ogilvy & Mather — of a well-situated alternative to pricier Santa Monica or Beverly Hills.
City officials and many residents cheer the cultural and culinary renaissance in the city’s downtown and the ongoing commercial revival there and in other pockets. But detractors contend that the once sleepy hamlet is paying a steep price in increased traffic, congestion and competition for parking spots that not long ago seemed plentiful. Downtown businesses are clamoring for a valet parking plan.
“We’ve become a victim of our own success,” said Andrew Weissman, a Culver City planning commissioner who is among nine candidates vying in Tuesday’s election for three City Council seats.
Density and traffic
As in much of the region, the overriding issues on the minds of Culver City voters are development, density and traffic — the slow midday crawl on Sepulveda Boulevard or the weekend evening jam-ups where what is purported to be the world’s shortest Main Street joins Culver and Washington boulevards in the city’s core. Commuter cut-through traffic compounds the woes.
“What’s been happening in Culver City is an enormous amount of development,” said Judith Miller, a resident battling a developer’s plan for 26 condos and office space with below-ground parking next to her Spanish colonial revival house, a city-designated landmark near City Hall. “The council members also make up the redevelopment agency and have been historically predisposed to development without being responsive to the community’s concerns.”
One redevelopment official countered that the new businesses provide much-needed revenue and a sense of vitality at a time when Sacramento is threatening to cut funding to cities.
“It’s been fascinating to see the evolution from having no identity, to struggling to achieve an identity, and now we’ve achieved it and are struggling to deal with that identity,” said Todd Tipton, redevelopment administrator. “It’s taking some effort to come to terms with this as [the city] grows and prospers.”
‘Run-down things’
In years past, residents of Culver City, population 40,000, might have welcomed packed sidewalks and thoroughfares.
“When I moved there in 1993, there wasn’t a restaurant to be had,” said Laura Stuart, a resident of the Sunkist Park neighborhood near the 405-90 freeway interchange in southwestern Culver City. “Downtown was pool halls and run-down things.”
It wasn’t always that way. Founder Harry Culver had emphasized the need for a solid economic base. The motion picture industry, which in the 1920s and ’30s found the city’s wide-open spaces ideal for back lots and filming, was a boon.
Enticed by Culver, Thomas Ince had built the town’s first studio, Ince/Triangle Studios — later Goldwyn Studios and then Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. (Since 1990, the lot has been the headquarters of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which employs 3,300 people in or near Culver City.)
Hal Roach Studios filmed Laurel and Hardy silent comedies around town. Other movies filmed there include “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Citizen Kane,” “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz.”
But by the early 1990s the city had lost most of the military, aviation and entertainment jobs that had created a strong local economy, if not a scintillating social scene. Much of the city became blighted.
In 1992, “other managers told me our basic job was to slow the rate of decline,” said Mark Winogrond, then the director of community development who was later credited with implementing the downtown revitalization. “I viewed Culver City as a town trapped in 1958 trying desperately to get into the 1970s.”
Even though Culver City’s motto continued to be “The Heart of Screenland,” Winogrond said, some residents had grown distant from the city’s rich history as a production hub for motion pictures and television.
The revival plan aimed to celebrate that connection. It called for downtown to be bookended on one end by Sony and the Kirk Douglas Theatre (a lovingly refurbished former movie palace) and on the other by Culver Studios and the Actors’ Gang Ivy Substation. Movie theaters, long absent, would help lure patrons, for whom public garages would provide ample free parking.
With the city providing incentives, such as helping to negotiate favorable leases and pay for remodeling, businesses gradually repopulated the area.
Meanwhile, developers Frederick and Laurie Samitaur Smith were revamping the Hayden Tract, the largely abandoned industrial sector along National Boulevard just east of downtown. Architect Eric Owen Moss’ futuristic designs for what the Smiths call Conjunctive Points attracted postproduction companies and Internet-related firms. More recently, the captive audience of office workers, as well as the prospect that the light-rail Expo Line could soon be transporting commuters along National, has helped spur the opening of trendy cafes.
Rules revised
Redevelopment officials also have their sights on the area near Westfield Fox Hills, a shopping center in southern Culver City that’s undergoing a $160-million face-lift. Nearby, developer Robert Champion floated ideas for building a massive mixed-use project on an arguably underused stretch of Sepulveda that features tire shops, banks and other businesses.
Leery of traffic, neighbors revolted and Champion backed off. Sensitive to the opposition, the City Council revised a mixed-use ordinance to scale back the allowable heights and densities.
Bonnie Zucker and her husband, Eric Magnuson, who moved to Culver City five years ago, say they enjoy the downtown’s new walkability and hope that the metamorphosis continues.
“Clearly, Culver City is on the rise and will continue to be,” said Zucker, a UCLA psychologist.
For Akasha Richmond, who recently opened her namesake restaurant in a landmark brick building downtown, Culver City sparks comparisons that would have been unthinkable in Harry Culver’s day.
“I feel the collective energy of all the creative people in the area,” Richmond said, “just like in New York.”
martha.groves@latimes.com
April 7th, 2008 -- Posted in Home Ideas and Tips, Lending Info, Local LA Real Estate News |
Information on Decline in Value Reassessments
It has been widely reported that the property values of single-family homes and condominiums throughout most of the State have been declining. While the declines in Los Angeles County have not been as dramatic as those in other parts of the State, property values have dropped in some areas of Los Angeles County.
How does this impact your property taxes? In 1978, California voters passed Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that allows a temporary reduction in assessed value when a property suffers a “decline-in-value.” A decline-in-value occurs when the current market value of your property is less than the assessed value as of January 1.
Typically, an application is required to initiate a review of your property’s value by the Assessor. However, in 2008 the Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office will be proactive in reviewing those single-family homes and condominiums that were purchased between July 1, 2005 and June 30, 2007. We will look at sales of comparable properties that sold near the lien date, January 1, 2008. If the market value is less than the assessed value indicated on your 2007-08 tax bill, the assessed value will be reduced accordingly. An application will not be necessary.
We will complete this review by June 1, 2008 and will notify in writing those property owners who qualify for a reduction in the assessed value of their property. Applications will be accepted prior to June 1, 2008, but if you purchased your home between July 1, 2005 and June 30, 2007, we urge you to wait for notification from our office before filing. Should it be necessary, you will have until December 31, 2008 to file an application for review.
If the sale date of your property is not within the dates noted or is other than a single family home or condominium, it will not be included in the review. However, if you believe the assessed value of the property shown on the 2007-08 tax bill is more than the fair market value as of January 1, 2008, you may file an application at any time through December 31, 2008.
We are aware of at least one private company that did a mass mailing to property owners offering their services to pursue a reduction in their property taxes. Specifically, they are seeking to file an assessment appeal on the property owner’s behalf. While there is no initial fee charged for the filing of an appeal, if a reduction is granted, this particular company will receive 45% of the amount of the tax savings for the next two years. We expect other private companies to offer similar services for a fee or a percentage of any tax savings.
Solicitations of this type may not be illegal, but property owners should be aware that the Assessor’s Office provides a simple filing process for a reduction in their property taxes at no charge.
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Decline-in-Value Reassessments
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Proposition 8 – What is It?
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In 1978, California voters passed Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that allows a temporary reduction in assessed value when a property suffers a “decline-in-value.” A decline-in-value occurs when the current market value of your property is less than the current assessed value as of January 1.1
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Eligibility Requirements
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- You must demonstrate that on January 1, the market value of your property was less than its current assessed value.
- You must file a claim form for a Decline-in-Value Reassessment Application (Prop.8) with the Assessor between January 1 and December 31 for the fiscal year beginning on July 1. If December 31 falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or a legal holiday, an application is valid if either filed or mailed and postmarked by the next business day.
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The Process
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- On your claim form, provide the Assessor with information that supports your opinion that the market value for your property is less than the assessed value. The best supporting documentation is information on sales of comparable properties. You should select two comparable sales that sold as close to January 1 as possible, but no later than March 31. You may query the Assessor’s database for sales in your neighborhood by clicking here. While the submission of comparable sales is helpful for the Assessor in determining the market value of your property, applications submitted without comparable sales will be accepted and processed.
- An appraiser will review your claim form and the information you provide. Other sales information available to the Assessor may also be considered. If the market value as of January 1 is less than the trended base value2, your assessed value will be lowered to the market value for the fiscal year beginning on July 1. The adjusted value will be reflected on your annual tax bill.
- If the current market value is higher than the trended base value, no change in assessed value will be made.If you disagree with the Assessor’s findings, you may file an appeal with the Assessment Appeals Board. You must file your appeal between July 2 and November 30 for your annual tax bill.
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Example
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A property was purchased for $500,000. During a three-year period, the real estate market declined and recovered. The property owner filed for a decline-in-value reassessment. The following table shows the trended base value of the property, the market value of the property, and the assessed value of the property. Assumimg a 2% Annual C.P.I.:
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Base Value Trended
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Market Value
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Assessed Value
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Year 1
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$500,000
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$500,000
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$500,000
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Year 2
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$510,000
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$480,000
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$480,000
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Year 3
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$520,200
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$510,000
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$510,000
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Year 4
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$530,604
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$550,000
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$530,604
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Q.
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Do properties other than single family residences qualify?
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A.
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Yes. All real property qualifies.
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Q.
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What is a comparable sale?
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A.
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A property sold with features that are similar to your property is a comparable sale. Comparable sales information helps you analyze the value of your home. For example, a property similar in location, zoning, size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, age, quality and condition to yours that sold in the open market is a comparable sale.
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Where can I find comparable sales information?
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A good place to start is online. The Assessor’s website offers sales information for properties that have sold within the last two years. The same information is available from any Assessor District Office. Also, many websites offer sales information free of charge. A local real estate agent or title agent can also be a valuable source of information.
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Q.
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I filed my Proposition 8 Application by December 31. When and how will I know if my value will be reduced?
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You will receive notification by mail before July 1.
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Q.
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If my assessed value is reduced, how long will it last?
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A.
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Proposition 8 reassessments are not permanent, but last at least one year. The assessed value may decrease or increase depending on the market value of your property on January 1 of each subsequent year. Your assessed value will never increase more than the trended base value. It is important to remember, however, that base year values suspended by Proposition 8 reassessment values continue to increase by an annual inflation factor of no more than 2% per year.
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How Do I File for Proposition 8 Tax Relief?
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A claim form is available from several sources. Choose what is most convenient for you.
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Online: Forms are available at the Assessor’s website: assessor.lacounty.gov
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Email: Send us an email at helpdesk@assessor.lacounty.gov
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Phone: Call (213)974-3211
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Claim forms may also be requested by mail or in person at any of our offices listed in this brochure.
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What Form Do I Need?
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Decline-in-Value Reassessment Application (Proposition  (RP-87)
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1To read the law associated with Proposition 8, see Revenue and Taxation Code, Section 51. It is available online at www.boetaxes.ca.gov/property.
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2Property is assessed at the time of sale or transfer (base value) or new construction. That base value increases a maximum of 2% (trend) each year (i.e. trended base value).
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