The Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council’s Land Use Committee (LUC) voted at its meeting Tuesday evening to recommend the GWNC board write a letter supporting the Brookside neighborhood’s effort to secure an Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ).
In reporting the news to neighbors, Jan Wieringa, Chairperson Brookside’s HPOZ committee, explained that Councilman David Ryu and his head of Planning, Julia Duncan, asked the committee to get a letter of support from the GWNC. Requesting the support from the Land Use Committee was the first step in that process. The GWNC board will vote on the LUC’s recommendation at its next board meeting on Wednesday, February 8, 2017.
Wieringa told the Buzz that getting the support of the GWNC is just the beginning of the lengthy city process to obtain an HPOZ, but it was undertaken because a large number of residents would like the protections an HPOZ provides to preserve the scale and architectural heritage of the neighborhood. Next, the Brookside HPOZ committee will begin the process of completing an historic survey of homes in Brookside. Even after all the work is completed, the city has to approve the HPOZ and dedicate planning department staff to manage it. Reportedly there are currently some 14 other HPOZ requests in the queue at the Planning department.
“We’ve got a long way to go, but this is a small, important first step,” said Wieringa. 
In other news, the Larchmont Chronicle reported that CIM is selling two of the four blocks it bought from original owner-builder, Farmers Insurance, in April of 2014. CIM will keep its headquarters on the property, west of Rimpau Blvd. According to the Chronicle:
“The sales listing is only for the two blocks between Rimpau Blvd. and Muirfield Rd. There is no listing price. The broker for the “best offer” listing is Kevin Shannon of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank.
CIM’s own planning to adaptively reuse the historic office tower as residences, plus build 34 new units in triplexes, townhomes, and single-family homes on the land now just parking lots, has been recounted in detail in numerous articles in 2014-2016 issues of the Larchmont Chronicle, including a lengthy article explaining Park Mile Specific Plan zoning at: LarchmontChronicle.com/8476-2.
CIM representatives say that the ever-changing real estate market has resulted in numerous unsolicited inquiries from buyers interested in purchasing the property, most likely for office use.
CIM representatives say it still is possible that the company will not sell the property and that all the planning for the tower’s adaptive reuse and construction of new residences will continue.”
