No announcement. Still waiting
One of the Zillow views was me (again). i had to show my husband the dandy outcome of this flip!
cb, I know you’re still waiting, and therefore so are we. But are you feeling happy??
I was feeling happy until today when nothing is happening.
Suddenly last week large grading equipment showed up 3 lots below on Del Monte. There is a skinny vacant lot there and, sure enough, they started moving dirt around the week I am trying to sell my property. Several potential buyers have been sending a lot of questions about this so I have spent hours researching the situation.
I pulled out my Topography Map and I know that our living room deck and living floor are 5 ft above the SW corner of the top portion of the lot. Our SW corner of the top portion is 200 ft above sea level and the bottom corner of the lot is 180 ft above sea level. So right there I know for a fact (on topography survey) that our home is 25 ft above the property boundary at the bottom.
So, I scrambled around the hillside and determined that the property boundary is 5 ft above the level of the street. And, the subject lot is another 5 - 6ft sloping down the street. But these two measurements are amateur estimates.
So, my best guess is that feet standing on the deck and living room are about 35 ft above the dirt of subject lot.
I looked at the City building website and the owner has gone through the Coastal Commission process and permitted for a 2 story 2800 sq ft house with detached garage. But, the detailed building plans are still going through review and I cannot get public access. I have no idea whether they are going to build off the bottom portion of the lot adjacent to Del Monte or the top portion of their lot on their alley. If they build in the back portion of the lot, there will be no view obstruction whatsoever because behemoth neighbor house will block it all.
But, I cannot get a good gauge whether it will obstruct a little bit of the view off the living room deck. It won’t block the water view, but it might block some of the houses below.
I sent all of my research to my agent to provide to interested buyers if they ask.
Why would they build,where they would only get a view of the behemoth house?
If they build elsewhere on the site, will they have a view of something? And if so…will this block your house view?
I would be extremely careful about making representations about what will happen with the view as a result of the other projects. Extremely, extremely careful. You might want a quick consult with a RE lawyer about what is safe to say, or what kind of research It is safe to give to prospective buyers.
IIRC, the lot in question is below the behemoth next door, so if anything they would be blocking the behemoth, not the other way round. The lot is long and narrow, and judging by googlemaps the existing structure is all the way at one end.
The lot in question is downhill from cb. What cb is saying is that if they build at the alley side of the lot, it won’t be visible from her house because the giant house next door to her will block the view of it from her house.
If they build it street-side, it might block some of the other down-hill houses from being seen from cb’s house, but it won’t block any of the water views.
They couldn’t wait just a few more weeks, huh. One hopes they’d build higher up on the alley to get better views themselves and to get above the house two lots down from them.
Shouldn’t all the agents be the ones knocking themselves out researching the situation?
The lot is interesting. It is actually the skinny piece of vacant land next to the low lying derelict house if doing an aerial view. So, it is 3rd lot down from my property.
The only portion of the analysis that I am going to provide to buyers is the topographical map of my property. This shows the height of the property from the lower property boundary. I cannot even guess what may or may not get built on that lot because nothing is available for me or potential buyers to view. But I do know for a fact that it cannot be higher than 30ft
Why do you have to do this research and respond? Are you concerned that buyers will flee if they are uncertain?
I agree with Marilyn that this is something your agent should be working on.
Believe me… agents are very leery of everything and have no knowledge of building codes, building height restrictions, coastal commission or nothing. Unless they have worked local to Pt Loma for over 20 yrs they would just deflect with ‘buyer needs to do their own due diligence’. Almost every listing that says ‘permits unknown, buyer to research’ leaves buyers asking their agents to go do research and they will not be bothered with it.
I feel I can at least provide the maps that I already paid for and these maps have already gone through the City for my project.
Yes, unobstructed views are a big big deal here and can add at least several hundred thousand in value to a property. So, a buyer from out of town (that is not familiar with Coastal Overlay Height Restriction requirements) would be very worried about earth moving equipment 3 lots away.
Frankly, I was a little worried by the language in the listing that says there are views that “cannot be obstructed.” Views can always be obstructed. With the construction starting, at least now potential buyers are on notice that something is going on on that lot and it should be up to them to figure out whether the new project will obstruct the views or not. I think most real estate lawyers would say that you want your disclosures to say that there’s a risk that the views someday could be obstructed and you dont want to say ANYTHING that can later be construed to the contrary. (And you don’t want your agent to say anything). (Disclaimer: Im not a RE lawyer and I cant give you legal advice).
I just looked at that lot and the surrounding ones on google earth. It is really hard to believe that they could jam a house right below the one on lot#2, below the behemoth. Aren’t there any setback rules? I’d think they would build toward the Del Monte end. Better yet, the people above them should buy the lot and combine them. Then they would have a decent piece of property and could expland their own house, which look tiny, and have a pool. 
I am very sorry this is happening.
Here, unless an agent makes a blatant misrepresentation or does something fraudulent, agent is not responsible for verification of every little fact etc. Agent is more off the hook than the owner. But I am not a lawyer. Just seen a lot of 17s lately.
That lot is a bit larger than the behemoth house lot and look what they crammed on that lot. The lot being graded is a little longer in length
But there really is no way that anything built under the 30ft height limit would obstruct our views. Building Dept website says it is going to be a 2 story (probably with one of those roof decks) about 2600 sq ft.
Sounds like it will be another improvement to,the neighborhood!! Not a bad thing!
There is nothing in the California Seller disclosures, which are very detailed with a ton of questions, that asks about views or any potential construction in neighborhood. A Seller would not have a place to note it on the forms.
Those seller disclosures were extremely detailed but somehow did not require disclosure of the home being used as a day care center diagonally behind us. We did learn that some neighbors had dogs, and one neighbor was an artist that had a workshop out back. And that there’s an airport nearby 
.