Amid various zoning laws and protests from neighborhood associations, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has won the right to erect a 6-foot "security wall" around the official residence of the Los Angeles Mayor in Windsor Square.
His application was approved June 8 and went unopposed during the appeals period, which ended last Thursday, reports Curbed LA. In the past, the Mayor's office has said this move will save taxpayers money from having to provide round the clock security, since the wall will be embedded with various "security features," according to Park La Brea News.
City zoning laws only allow for a 42-inch wall in the historic Windsor Square neighborhood. Initially, when the Mayor's office first proposed the wall, it was 8 and 1/2 feet. Despite lowering the height to 6 feet, neighborhood associations like the Windsor Square Association protested the Mayor's application. Their official resolution on the matter, via the LA Times:
There are several consulates and many celebrities that live in Windsor Square. The owners of these properties have similar security concerns and will support our findings that a 42-inch fence will accomplish the same goals as a taller fence, wall or hedge.
The Association's vice-president John Welborne also noted to Park La Brea News:
...virtually everyone in the City of Los Angeles who erects, or seeks to erect, an over-in-height fence or wall in the required, open, front yard setback area of a single-family residence says the reason is ‘for security.’ Should all of Los Angeles, including its historic residential neighborhoods, become a collection of walled compounds?
But as the LA Times points out, the idea for a wall didn't originate with Villaraigosa -- it came via the LAPD from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In an op-ed supporting the variance, they note "A 6-foot-high fence, according to the mayor's office, is not going to stop a terrorist attack. But it should stop, or at least slow down, a deranged individual." Villaraigosa had filed for an exception to the zoning law just weeks after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.