Burbank holds public meeting on Empire Center traffic study

The city of Burbank held a community meeting Wednesday to present information about a draft study looking at the traffic impacts around the Empire Center if the city were to either complete, modify or abandon two sets of incomplete traffic-mitigation measures called for in the original environmental document for the retail center in 2001.

The comment period for the document opened Dec. 21 and closes Feb. 4. City staff will produce a final report responding to the comments later this year, and the City Council members are expected to review the document and choose which of several mitigation measures to implement, possibly in late March, city officials said.

Depending on the selected options, the work could take several years. Costs could range from roughly $925,000 for modified measures to more than $15 million to implement them as originally envisioned, which include adding more turn lanes at key intersections on Buena Vista Street at Victory Boulevard and Empire Avenue.

David Kriske, the city’s assistant community development director, said he’d already received several comments “from both sides of the spectrum” — those wary about how the street improvements could impact them or create more traffic in the area, and others who say the city should simply do the improvements originally outlined in 2001.

“I don’t know if they’ve looked at the costs,” he said of the latter group.

Kriske said part of the reason the city delayed full implementation of the measures from 15 years ago was because traffic levels never reached a threshold where they were necessary, but also because they would require land acquisition for the necessary right-of-way, with subsequent business relocations and building demolitions.

The city had planned to wait until the properties were being redeveloped to acquire them, so as to minimize the costs and disruption, he said. However, a court ruling said that was no excuse.

Residents had sought to block Walmart from opening in the former Great Indoors store adjacent to the shopping center, at least until the mitigations could be completed. Last year, an appeals court found that, while it wasn’t a reason to block Walmart, the city had failed its duty to implement the improvements and would need to complete them or conduct a new environmental study to modify the requirements.

According to the new environmental review, eliminating the remaining measures altogether would result in “significant cumulative impacts” to the traffic at the two intersections on Buena Vista Street in the future. However, completing them would have significant costs and would dislocate several area businesses.

The study looked at less costly alternatives, including one that would still require land acquisition but no demolition of buildings.

Bill Fields, who lives near the affected intersections, said he’s worried about the potential loss of street parking in the area under the proposed options, but said he’s also worried the measures won’t do enough to address traffic issues that exist already at Buena Vista and Victory.

“It’s a dangerous situation even if we weren’t changing anything,” Fields said. He added that he attended the community meeting to make his concerns part of the official record.

The draft study, along with details about how to comment, can be found on the city’s website.

--

Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com

Twitter: @chadgarland