A new application with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning proposes subdividing a 1.2-acre parcel at 13750 Fenton Avenue in Sylmar into 10 lots, each with a single-family home, one-car garage, and a junior accessory dwelling unit.
A 1.2-acre property at 13750 Fenton Avenue in Sylmar could soon be redeveloped as a cluster of 10 small-lot homes, each paired with its own garage, rear yard, and junior accessory dwelling unit, according to a new application filed with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning.
The proposal, submitted by CSE Management Group, LLC, would carve the site into 10 separate lots, each improved with a single-family home, a one-car garage, and a rear yard. Every lot would also include a junior accessory dwelling unit, adding a secondary living space to each of the 10 parcels.
The structures would be two stories tall and arranged in rows around a shared common driveway, a layout that is a hallmark of the small-lot housing format. 121 Design Build is credited as the project's designer.
The Fenton Avenue property last sold for $1.1 million this year, according to property records cited in the reporting.
Los Angeles created the small-lot housing typology through its Small Lot Subdivision Ordinance, adopted in 2005 to introduce a more compact form of detached single-family housing to the city. Before that change, a roughly 5,000-square-foot minimum lot size had made traditional detached single-family construction an impractical option for many developers.
Despite two decades of availability, small-lot developments remain a relatively uncommon sight on many residential blocks in the San Fernando Valley. The proposal would add to a growing number of small-lot applications surfacing across the city in recent weeks.
Parking at small-lot developments follows different rules than standard single-family construction. Citywide, the Los Angeles Municipal Code generally requires at least two automobile parking spaces on the same lot as each one-family dwelling. But for small-lot subdivisions approved under the relevant municipal code section, required parking spaces do not have to sit on the same lot as each unit. They only need to fall within the overall parcel or tract-map boundaries.
The junior accessory dwelling units planned for each Fenton Avenue lot would be subject to state law governing how many such units can exist on a single parcel. Under California state legislation, the number of junior accessory dwelling units may be limited to one per residential lot zoned for single-family residences that already has a single-family residence built on it.
Small-lot proposals have been surfacing elsewhere in the San Fernando Valley and beyond in recent weeks. A separate application recently filed with city planners targeted a 1950s single-family home near Cal State University Northridge for a similar small-lot subdivision. And in late September, a developer filed an application calling for small-lot homes to replace a single-family property in West Adams, according to The Real Deal.
The Fenton Avenue proposal is expected to move through the city planning review process in the coming months.
This article was generated with AI assistance.