City Council says no to reducing height limit for Glendale developments

Plans to reduce the height limit on developments in a northwest neighborhood will have to wait a few years after the City Council on Tuesday decided it wouldn’t be fair to abandon work on a community plan for south Glendale in order to pursue changing the height limit.

Mayor Paula Devine had pushed for a discussion to trim the 90-foot height limit on North Brand Boulevard — a commercial zone outside of downtown that’s immediately adjacent to a residential neighborhood.

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“The longer we wait, there will be opportunities for increased development, and it will be unabated, I’m sure,” she said.

Residents in the area have complained after a pair of project applications, including one for an 82-foot-tall hotel that was submitted to replace the Recess eatery at the corner of Brand and Dryden Avenue.

One of those residents was Sean Bersell, who said it’s the type of project that was meant for downtown Glendale.

“When the Downtown Specific Plan was adopted, the community was promised these types of large developments would be concentrated there,” he told the council.

Office buildings on that stretch of North Brand range between 75 and 42 feet tall, according to a city staff report.

Staffers were recommending the height cap could be dropped to as low as 35 feet to better conform with the nearby residences.

However, Councilmen Ara Najarian, Zareh Sinanyan and Vartan Gharpetian were opposed to initiating the change, at least for now.

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Najarian said he felt the proposal to revise the height limit was in response to the 82-foot tall hotel application, which was reviewed by the Design Review Board on Thursday.

“There’s no greater abuse of government power than to change zoning on an entire two- or three-block stretch because of one particular project,” he said.

Devine denied that the hotel project was her motivation for bringing up the height-reduction discussion. She said she just wants to prevent large developments from creeping into residential neighborhoods.

The three councilmen voted against starting work to initiate the height-cap change as soon as possible.

Instead, Najarian said he would entertain talking about it when an honest discussion about zoning is sought.

That talk will have to wait at least two years, when the topic will be looped into the East and West Community Plan implementation.

Currently, planning staff members are working on the South Glendale Community Plan, which would have to be put on hold if the council was to direct staffers to work on the north Brand height cap, said Philip Lanzafame, the city’s community development director.

Sinanyan said he took issue with that.

“I feel like again south Glendale is going to pay for something north Glendale wants,” he said. “Again, south Glendale is going to suffer.”

In the meantime, applications for projects exceeding no more than 90 feet in height can continue being submitted for the north Brand area, Lanzafame said.

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Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com

Twitter: @ArinMikailian

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