Scorched House in Studio City...and WTF, ZIMAS
The intersection of Carpenter Avenue and Moorpark Street is in Studio City, but it’s close enough to North Hollywood that I wasn’t terribly surprised to see an alert about a vacant house catching on fire.
Regarding why it’s empty, there isn’t much to see here. Permit filings show that whoever owns it intends to replace the existing one-story house with a two-story house, pool, and detached ADU.
A few things are weird here, though.
First, while a demolition notice was posted in the front yard at least as far back as October (per Street View), I couldn’t find any evidence of a demolition permit being issued. (Great, now I’ve got to make a public records request for demo permits, too. More on that in a minute.)
Second, the property doesn’t seem to have been fenced off. Studio City is a nice neighborhood, but that doesn’t magically make it immune to trespassers, squatters, or arsonists.
Third, I hit a wall trying to look up property data in ZIMAS, which thinks 4408 Carpenter Avenue doesn’t exist (it does).
I was able to pull data via a workaround taught to me by Mike Callahan (thanks again, Mike). Strangely, ZIMAS shows NO address or ZIP code (that will come as a surprise to the Postal Service) and NO data on the existing house (which isn’t gone YET).
I’ve looked up many a parcel that used to have a building on it, and the parcel data is always there even if the building is gone. Not this time.
Can we just talk about the fact that LA’s public records access needs work? This isn’t the first time ZIMAS has had incorrect or missing data, and recently I had to resort to requesting data from the city’s IT department because Eunisses’ office couldn’t be bothered to reply (AGAIN). (Read about my headache-inducing CPRA request from 2024 - still unfulfilled! - here.)
Anyway, fires suck. If you are the owner of 4408 Carpenter Avenue, please consider fencing off the existing house before squatters or arsonists create a problem for your neighbors (and believe me, they will - more than half of this blog is about preventable fires).