Investor Prompts Diamond Bar to Consider Halting Building Permits

The recent interest by a real estate investor to add guest homes to properties along Fallow Field Drive has prompted Diamond Bar’s planners to ask the City Council for a 45-day moratorium on the issuance of permits to build guest homes.

City officials said the investor is systematically acquiring properties in the neighborhood, which is lined with single-family homes, and applying to build the guest homes.

A proliferation of the homes with second units “has the potential effect of changing the fundamental character of the neighborhood from single-family to multifamily, and this pattern could be repeated in other neighborhoods,” officials said.

An Interim Urgency Ordinance requesting the moratorium will be presented to the council on Tuesday.

Greg Gubman, Community Development Director, is requesting the temporarily stop to allow staff time to complete new permanent regulations that would set the standards that would preserve the character of the neighborhoods in which they are located, Gubman said.

"Thus far, one guest house has been completed, another is under construction on a second property,” he wrote. “And efforts are underway to obtain permits to construct an ancillary dwelling unit on yet another property.”

The council meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the AQMD/Government Center, Auditorium, 21865 Copley Drive.