Pre-Application Board Consultation

Pre-application Board consultation is an optional informational meeting with the HPOZ Board, scheduled before a project develops complete plans, in which the Board provides up-front guidance on a proposed scope. It is not a binding decision, not part of the formal review track, and not a substitute for the eventual Certificate of Appropriateness, Certificate of Compatibility, or Conforming Work review the project will need.

Adopted Preservation Plans across the LA HPOZ system describe the consultation in consistent terms. Per language drawn from the Plans:

“Consultation with the HPOZ Board prior to the development of complete plans may be a valuable step in planning an appropriate and cost-effective project. The HPOZ Board can offer up-front guidance that may streamline the review process for work on both Contributing and Non-Contributing properties.”

The consultation is informational and exploratory. It typically gives the project team three things, depending on how the Board agendizes the discussion and what the project brings:

• Up-front guidance on direction. The Board reads the proposed scope against the applicable Preservation Plan and the district’s character-defining features and offers feedback before the design has hardened. The feedback is non-binding but informed by the same principles that will govern the eventual review.
• Resource and design input. Per the Plans, the Board can provide input on resources and design that may help a project achieve the goals of the Preservation Plan — for example, identifying historical precedents within the district, flagging specific features the eventual review will focus on, or pointing to similar prior projects.
• A streamlined eventual review. Where the project incorporates the Board’s pre-application guidance, the formal application that follows is more likely to align with the Plan from the outset, which may reduce the number of plan-check correction rounds and the likelihood of design changes during the formal review.

Pre-application consultation is useful for almost any project but provides the most value in three scenarios:

• Projects likely to require a Certificate of Appropriateness or Certificate of Compatibility. Additions over the conforming threshold, second-story additions, new construction on vacant lots, demolition-and-replacement of Non-Contributing structures, and substantive alterations to Contributing features all eventually go to the Board for a public hearing. Pre-application consultation lets the project team test the design direction with the same body that will eventually recommend approval, conditional approval, or denial to the Director of Planning.
• Projects on properties with complex Survey records. Where the property has been surveyed as Contributing-Altered, where prior alterations are documented, or where character-defining features are unusual, the Board can provide context that the Survey record alone may not surface.
• Projects in districts with strong stylistic concentration. Districts with a dominant style — Spanish Colonial Revival in Hancock Park, Period Revival in Spaulding Square, Mid-Century Modern in Balboa Highlands — generate compatibility expectations the Board can articulate before design commits to a direction that will face friction.

The two events are different. The distinction matters because consultation does not satisfy the eventual review requirement, and the eventual review does not give a project the front-end discussion that consultation does.

• Pre-application consultation is optional, scheduled before complete plans are developed, and produces non-binding guidance. No application fee is required for the consultation itself; the formal application fees attach later when the project is filed.
• Formal Board review is required for the project’s actual approval pathway. For Conforming Work delegated to the Board, the Board votes on the application at a public meeting and the vote is the project-review decision. For Certificate Cases, the Board conducts a public hearing and submits a recommendation to the Director of Planning. Both formal-review tracks require complete plans, application fees, and a deemed-complete application.

A project can use the consultation without committing to file later, and a project that skips the consultation can still file directly into the formal review track. The two are independent procedural steps; one is a recommendation, the other is the binding pathway.

The HPOZ Board is not the only pre-application resource available. The Office of Historic Resources planner assigned to the district can typically also be approached for informal pre-application discussion at the staff level. Staff-level pre-application discussion is faster and less procedural — a phone call or email exchange rather than an agendized meeting — and is often the right starting point for projects whose scope is not yet defined.

The two options serve different needs. A planner conversation may resolve threshold and procedural questions (which review category applies, which section of the Plan governs, whether the project clears Conforming Work or moves to a Certificate Case). A Board consultation adds the volunteer-Board perspective on design direction and historic context, which the staff planner may flag separately. Many projects benefit from both, in sequence — staff first to identify the procedural posture, Board afterward to test the design.

Pre-application consultation has clear limits. The Board cannot pre-approve a project at consultation; pre-approval would substitute for the formal review the ordinance requires. The Board can offer guidance, raise concerns, and signal direction, but it cannot bind the eventual decision.

Two practical implications follow.

Consultation guidance is not a guarantee. A project that incorporates the Board’s pre-application feedback may still receive conditional approval or denial at the formal review stage. The Board’s pre-application posture can change when complete plans are presented, particularly where new information emerges or where the Director of Planning’s analysis differs from the Board’s recommendation. Owners and design teams should treat consultation guidance as informed input, not as a contract.

Conflict-of-interest rules continue to apply. Per adopted Preservation Plans, no Board member may accept professional employment on a case acted upon by the Board or any of its subcommittees in the previous twelve months, or that is reasonably expected to be acted upon in the next twelve months. A Board member who participates in a pre-application consultation has acted on the case for purposes of the rule. Owners and design teams who research a Board roster before retaining a consultant avoid this trap.

Source: Pre-application Board consultation language drawn directly from adopted Preservation Plans across the LA HPOZ system, including the verbatim recommendation that consultation “prior to the development of complete plans may be a valuable step in planning an appropriate and cost-effective project.” The consultation is a recommended practice rather than a procedural requirement under the citywide HPOZ Ordinance (LAMC §12.20.3) and the procedural framework codified at Division 13B.8 of Chapter 1A. Conflict-of-interest rule for Board members per adopted Preservation Plans.