‘The People Are Upset’ : Burbank Awaits Hearing on Moratorium

A special Burbank City Council hearing Wednesday on a proposed moratorium on major development is expected to generate heated comment from residents who want to halt growth around the city’s Media District and the adjacent Rancho residential community.

“The people are upset, which doesn’t surprise me,” said Councilman Michael Hastings, who has supported a moratorium on development. “I knew it because I live right in the middle of it. We all want Burbank to grow, but we have to have a plan. What we have now is a big box of puzzle pieces with no picture.”

Residents Versus Builders

The meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. at John Burroughs High School, 1920 Clark Ave., marks the latest turn in the controversy surrounding the increasing development of office and apartment buildings in the two areas. Residents have long feared that development will infringe on their neighborhoods, and city officials say unrestrained building will cause traffic gridlock.

The meeting was scheduled principally because of the recent stream of protests from residents of the Rancho area, which is roughly bordered by the Los Angeles River, Victory Boulevard and Oak and Buena Vista streets. Several of the area’s residents own horses, and they say that multi-family apartment buildings, which can be built in the area under current zoning laws, would destroy the Rancho neighborhood’s rustic nature.

Emergency Measure Ready

Mayor Mary Lou Howard is the only other council member who has expressed support for a moratorium. Howard said City Atty. Doug Holland has prepared an emergency resolution that would stop the issuance of building permits for office buildings and multi-family residential projects of three or more units on a lot.

The resolution, which would last 90 days, can be signed Wednesday if approved by four of the five council members.

The council has voted several times recently on the issue, but the moratorium has not been approved because of continuing opposition from council members Robert Bowne, Al Dossin and Mary E. Kelsey.

Dossin said such an action would prompt “panic” among developers. He added that the city should not take any action that would affect the growth of the motion picture studios headquartered in the Media District.

Moratorium Called Drastic

Bowne and Kelsey have said that the moratorium is too drastic a step for the city to take before getting comment from the entire community.

But Hastings said the moratorium would not threaten the growth of the studios or St. Joseph Medical Center, which is also in the area. “If these institutions have projects planned, they couldn’t get them off the ground in 90 days anyway,” he said. “We want them to flourish and grow. They have the good of the community in mind.”

Hastings said the people who want to build projects in the area “don’t live here. They have their wallets in mind instead of the good of the city of Burbank.”

Although the city is revising its General Plan, and is preparing a plan for development of the Media District, “the benefits of the planning process and related mechanisms for implementation would be substantially defeated if commercial office and multi-family residential development” is allowed to proceed unrestrained until the plans are adopted, the proposed moratorium says.

The moratorium would not stop projects for which building permits had been issued at the time the action became effective.

Permits for retail, industrial and single-family residential structures, as well as improvements on existing structures, would still be allowed under the moratorium.