HCM-122 — designated 1974-03-20
Buck House
5950-5958 West 8th Street and 805 South Genesee Avenue
public open-data signals are too weak to classify; designation may be load-bearing via procedural friction, may be recognition only — rubric cannot tell without a demolition-pressure proxy
cannot classify — public open-data signals are too weak. would need a demolition-pressure proxy to resolve.
street view ↗ satellite ↗ big orange landmarks ↗ (bariscale, 2008) wood-frame + stucco (orchestrator-captured imagery is not building-aimed — use these for HITL verification)
Six-axis scores
- A. would-survive 5 probability the structure would survive market forces without HCM designation. low = needs protection.
- B. tourist currency 0 tourist and cultural currency — Wikipedia pageviews, walking-tour inclusion, public visitation evidence.
- C. subsidy efficiency 0 subsidy efficiency — Mills Act and federal HTC value vs preservation outcome. zero means no active subsidy.
- D. externality load 0 externality load — code complaints, CSR cases, 311 encampment/dumping/graffiti, vacancy duration.
- E. neighborhood health 2 neighborhood health — median household income, distress indicators, displacement risk.
- F. alternative-use value 3 alternative-use value — parcel acres, TOC tier, TPA eligibility, zoning capacity for higher use.
overall confidence: unknown
Site
- lat / lon
- 34.06066, -118.35972
- parcel acres
- 0.1704976434254393 (inferred)
- typology
- sfr
- TPA / TOC
- yes — tier 3
- zoning capacity
- —
- nrhp listed
- no
- architect prominence
- —
Condition + subsidy
all "condition" fields below are proxies derived from LADBS permit history, 311 CSR cases, and code complaints. none of these directly measures occupancy. the vacancy line shows the proxy value and the specific rule that produced it; readers should treat "active" as "construction permits filed recently," not "people live or work here."
- vacancy proxy
- active
- vacancy proxy basis
- single permit within 5y
- last permit
- 2023
- permits last 24mo
- 0
- code complaints 24mo
- 0
- CSR open cases
- 2
- Mills Act contract
- no — not in la OHR appendix a (2019 list of Mills Act properties)
- federal HTC
- no
- Wikipedia pageviews 12mo
- —
- walking-tour inclusion
- no
- median hhi (tract)
- —
- assessed value
- —
Street view vision classification
claude vision analyzed 4 Google street view captures (n/e/s/w from the parcel coordinates) for visible distress indicators. this is an automated screening — false positives and negatives both happen, and "well_maintained" only means the visible facade is intact; internal structural condition is not assessable from street view.
- building visible
- yes
- building type
- commercial
- overall condition
- well maintained
- other indicators
- none visible
- notes
- The Buck House is clearly visible in the southward (180°) image as a well-maintained white modernist structure with clean stucco walls, intact windows, and tidy landscaping showing no distress indicators.
Contextual signals (GIS)
these are contextual proxies — signals derived from spatial context, not direct measurements of the property. they help infer hidden variables (contamination probability, structural risk) that public open-data does not measure directly. source: cal OEHHA CalEnviroScreen 4.0 (cumulative pollution burden by census tract).
- census tract
- 6037216300
- CalEnviroScreen overall percentile
- 31.8 (decile 4)
- cleanups percentile
- 2.1
- groundwater threats percentile
- 86.4
- hazardous waste percentile
- 88.5
- toxic release percentile
- 76.1
- lead exposure percentile
- 50.6
- EnviroStor cleanup sites nearby
- —
- in CGS liquefaction zone
- no
- type-1 contamination probability (fused)
- 0.36 — low
- type-2 structural-risk probability
- 0.20 — low
Narrative
history
buck house (hcm-122) is a single-family residence located in los angeles, the precise construction date of which is not confirmed in available municipal records (approximately 1930s–1940s, based on stylistic and contextual evidence). the structure is associated with the mid-century residential development patterns that characterized much of the westside and foothill districts of los angeles during the postwar era. no architect of record has been identified in the fetched data, and no major documented events — sales, alterations, fires, or notable occupants — appear in the current dataset. the property is not listed on the national register of historic places. the basis for its original hcm designation is not reconstructable from available data alone and warrants archival review of the original nomination file.
architectural significance
without confirmed architect attribution or a verified construction date, a precise stylistic classification cannot be made with confidence. single-family residences designated as hcms in los angeles during this period frequently represent examples of period revival, minimal traditional, or early modern residential design, though none of these can be confirmed for buck house without field inspection or access to original plans. no comparable extant examples are cited in the fetched data, and no distinctive features have been recorded in the current dataset. the absence of this information is itself a flag: hcm designations for sfr typologies without documented architect prominence or nrhp listing require stronger evidentiary justification than the record currently provides.
neighborhood context
tract-level socioeconomic data for the buck house parcel are entirely absent from the fetched dataset — median household income, population change, business license churn, and eviction filings are all null. the 311 externality signals (encampments, dumping, graffiti) return zero counts within 500 feet over 24 months, which is consistent with a stable residential block but cannot be distinguished from a data gap. transit proximity and toc/tpa tier are unconfirmed. the neighborhood health axis (e) has been scored at 2, which would ordinarily indicate significant district distress, but confidence on that axis is listed as unknown, meaning the score reflects an absence of positive evidence rather than affirmative distress indicators. no reliable neighborhood synthesis is possible without acs tract-level data pull. | metric | value | |---|---| | census tract | — | | median hhi | — | | 5yr δ population | — | | 311 within 500ft (24mo) | 0 | | encampment 311 calls | 0 | | ladbs code complaints (24mo) | — | | last permit year | — |
subsidy and condition
| field | value | |---|---| | mills act | — | | federal htc | — | | vacancy status | — |
classification reasoning
axis a (survival without protection) scores 5 at medium confidence, indicating the building has a roughly even probability of surviving market forces without hcm status. without nrhp listing, identified architect prominence, documented owner investment, or adaptive reuse demand data, there is no strong affirmative case that the market would protect this structure — but equally no evidence of imminent demolition pressure. axis b (tourist/cultural currency) scores 0, and confidence is unknown: no google reviews, wikipedia pageviews, walking tour inclusion, or nps designation are on record. the structure generates no documented external visitation value. axes c (subsidy efficiency) and d (externality load) both score 0 with unknown and medium confidence respectively. no mills act contract, federal htc, or code complaints are on record, and 311 counts are zero — meaning neither a subsidy-drain problem nor a negative-spillover problem is currently demonstrable. axis e (neighborhood health) scores 2, but this score is driven entirely by null data rather than affirmative distress signals; it cannot be treated as reliable. axis f (alternative use value) scores 0 with unknown confidence, as parcel acreage, zoning capacity, and tpa/toc tier are all missing. in aggregate, the scoring profile reflects a near-total data vacuum rather than a well-characterized hcm. the flag is reassess rather than candidate because the candidate conditions cannot be confirmed at medium confidence or above across the required gating axes — specifically, c, d, e, and f all carry unknown confidence, and f_min ≥ 6 is not met.
sources
- la311: https://data.lacity.org/resource/h65r-yf5i.json?$where=within_circle(location%2c%2034.06066000050367%2c%20-118.35971926034733%2c%20152)%20and%20createddate%20%3e%20'2024-05-10'&$limit=1000 --- _generated by hcm-1200 orchestrator on 2026-05-10t22:52:56.087z._