Council puts off vote on EIR revisions
The Glendale City Council postponed its vote Tuesday on proposed revisions to a law that governs who conducts environmental review on new development — after concerns that the suggested guidelines would cede too much oversight to developers.
The California Environmental Quality Act, which requires local agencies to report and make public the environmental impacts of projects, allows the City Council to tailor local procedures on how an Environmental Impact Report is conducted.
Under the revised local guidelines put forth by the Housing Authority, applicants would be able to select their own consultant for nonresidential development. The council rejected that portion of the revision outright, with Mayor Paula Devine calling it a case of ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune.’
“Revising these guidelines [as suggested] would have a negative impact, real or perceived, on the objectivity and the transparency of this process,” Devine said. “The residents need us to preserve the integrity of the neighborhoods ... that are impacted by the development, whether it’s commercial or residential.”
In a presentation of the local CEQA guidelines, which have not been updated since 2003, Director of Community Development Philip Lanzafame argued that although there may be cases where the consultant serves only the interests of the applicant, the city still has control over the review process and guarantees public input.
“This is a balance of interests. We have applicants that are expecting the city to process things, the state of California is expecting us to process things under certain time lines and certainly the community is asking us to protect our interests and make sure we are doing the right thing on development,” Lanzafame said at the Tuesday meeting. “The public process in our proposal, we believe, is being protected.”
The council’s position, however, aligned with the public speakers that night. All were locals against the revisions. One of them was a former litigator who claimed that anyone with enough money could find a consultant to say “almost anything.” Another was a former environmental consultant who warned that there are enough consultants out there willing to make negative impacts disappear.
Greg Grammer, president of the Glendale Historical Society, spoke third. He echoed concerns laid out in a letter written earlier in the week, also circulated by other members of the community.
“To allow developers to select and hire EIR consultants ignores the inherent conflict of interest,” Grammer wrote. “It nakedly puts developer interests first and damages public confidence in fair and transparent government processes. The city is accountable to citizens for their decisions; developers are not.”
The issue is now scheduled for a second consideration at next week’s council meeting, this time with an ordinance that would include revised guidelines with changes as it relates to nonresidential buildings.
“We were really pleased with Tuesday night’s results and pleased that the Glendale Historical Society was able to nudge the city in a better direction,” Grammer later said.
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Jeff Landa, jeff.landa@latimes.com
Twitter: @JeffLanda
