Glendale to consider updating incentives for developers

Incentives for developers to build in downtown Glendale are being updated by the City Council, which wants to see more done with more open spaces in future projects.

Adopted in 2006, the Downtown Specific Plan laid out parameters independent of the rest of the community to attract growth. More than 3,000 units have been approved for construction in the area since then.

Despite most of downtown already being built out, the council agreed last year to raise the bar for incentives developers must satisfy in exchange for more density and height.

The most popular incentive was for open space. A dozen developers took advantage of it. Developers were previously required to dedicate at least 5% of their projects to open space, but could provide more in order to earn a density bonus.

Now, staff is recommending changing that to 10% and setting further requirements such as mandating at least 50% of the open space be directly under the sky and have open space located at sidewalk level so it will be more noticeable.

Councilman Vartan Gharpetian said he would like to see a water fountain or different types of trees in order to have a well-designed open space.

“[The] public open space can be used for something, people can sit down if they want to, not just a concrete floor so you can’t even tell where it is,” he said.

Mayor Ara Najarian said he would like to see more seating.

“Nothing says get your butt out of here more than having a space with no seating,” he said.

The amendments will communicate what the council is asking for, said Alan Loomis, deputy director of community development.

“It provides a lot of clean numbers that makes it easy to administer,” he said.

The original specific plan also allowed a height bonus if developers met LEED silver environmental standards, but that incentive has been eliminated.

A gold or silver LEED standard earned a developer three additional stories, but Councilwoman Paula Devine wanted to break that up. Now, a gold standard would yield two stories and platinum would earn three.

However, Gharpetian said the city has missed the boat on these kinds of opportunities with updated incentives. He asked Loomis whether there were any projects in the pipeline that would be subject to the revised incentives.

Loomis said there are a few downtown properties on the market, but any talk about them has been vague generalities.

The revised ordinance will return to the council for consideration at an upcoming meeting.