Ballot battle looms over Santa Monica historic zone plan. (Up Front).

For the City of Santa Monica's Landmarks Commission, it's about history, not control.

For a local homeowner's group, it's about freedom, not money.

At issue is a report released by the city's Landmarks Commission that identifies 308 properties in five neighborhoods deemed eligible to be part of future historic districts.

Should the designation be approved by Santa Monica City Council, homeowners would be required to get "certificates or appropriateness" for all exterior changes and essentially lose the right to demolish their properties.

In response to the report, a group called Homeowners For Voluntary Preservation said it would collect 6,000 signatures for a November ballot measure requiring the city to get an individual homeowner's consent before being included in any historic district.

Tom Larmore, partner at Harding Larmore Kutcher & Kozal and co-founder of Homeowners for Voluntary Preservation, called the proposed zones "a pretty substantial impairment on your personal freedom."

But Landmarks Commissioner Ruthana Lehrer disputed the perceived extent of the regulation, saying, "You're permitted to do anything that zoning regulations allow you to build. Historic districts only provide guidelines to what it looks like."

The report updated a 20-year-old list of properties deemed part of the city's "Historic Resources Inventory" for those north of Montana Avenue. The area was identified because it contains a number of architecturally significant homes -- from the 90-plus-year-old Craftsmans that dot Adelaide Drive on the west to the La Mesa Drive homes designed by such masters as Lloyd Wright and Paul Williams on the east.

It also comes in response to the demolition of numerous 50-plus-year-old houses to make room for larger, more expensive homes - a fallout of the ongoing real estate boom in Santa Monica where the median price of a single-family home was $1.3 million last year, compared with $232,000 countywide.

Lost treasures 

The Commission's report said that between August 1988 and August 2001, 224 homes north of Montana were torn down. More recently, within a three-month period toward the end of last year the Landmarks Commission received requests for demolition permits for four houses over 50 years old on a small stretch of 18th Street.

"(Discussions for) the district started because people came to us and said, 'We want to preserve this neighborhood,"' said Liz Bar-El, associate planner for the City of Santa Monica and Landmarks Commission liaison.

A total of 358 properties were identified as potential landmarks or structures of merit. Any property on the list requires Landmark Commission approval for renovations where more than 50 percent of the structure's walls are altered, although aesthetic changes are not reviewed.

Limits on properties with historic designations are more stringent than those simply listed on the commission's "inventory." In historic districts, all exterior changes must be consistent with the architectural style of the district.

"You know how people just dread going through the permitting process (for home alterations)," said Maureen Gorsen, a land use attorney and former owner of an historic Craftsman house in Sacramento. "The dread factor is multiplied by 100. Between the approvals and consultants, you're going to spend $50,000 just to replace your windows."

Oversight necessary

Homeowners argue that the historic designation could hurt property values by limiting what they could do with their properties. But Bar-El and Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, which oversees 15 Historic Preservation Overlay Zones in the city, said homeowners would actually benefit.

"The research has yielded a uniform result that designation of a historic district enhances property values in comparison to adjacent neighborhoods over time," said Bernstein, who cited neighborhoods like West Adams and Hollywood's Whitley Terrace as examples of property appreciation.

That argument does not apply in north Santa Monica, according to Larmore, who's lived in the area for more than 20 years. "Most historic districts have been created in areas that had been declining," said Larmore. "When you're talking about areas that are already popular places to live, I don't think you'll see the same result."

The combination of high land costs and limits imposed on homebuyers will result in property value reduction, he said.

The arguments reverberate in a 127-year-old city that, while valuing its historical heritage, only has two small historic districts to date -- the two-square block Third Street Neighborhood Historic District near Ocean Park Boulevard, and the Bay Craftsman Cluster Historic District, which encompasses just four properties.

No decisions of historical district designation will come without the support of a majority of the property owners in the area, said Lehrer, a statement in which Larmore takes little comfort.

"Even if the majority of the residents were in favor of it, many would not," said Larmore. "I don't think a majority should control what you can do to your house."