Panel Backs Horses, Not High Density

A committee studying Burbank’s Rancho neighborhood has recommended lowering the permitted height of apartment buildings and increasing parking requirements to combat dense development.

The 10-member committee of businessmen and residents, appointed by the Burbank City Council in December, made the recommendations in a 23-page report released Monday. The council is expected to forward the report tonight to the city’s planning division for integration into Burbank’s general land use and zoning plan, which is being revised.

The Rancho neighborhood, an area of mostly single-family homes where many residents keep horses, is bordered by Oak Street on the north, Victory Boulevard on the east, the city limits on the south and the city’s Media District on the west.

The report was commissioned after horse owners said they were concerned about projects not oriented toward horses and about parking and traffic along the area’s major streets.

‘For Controlled Development’

“We are not against development, but we are for controlled development,” said Dick Jones, the committee chairman.

The panel called for a maximum height of 25 feet for apartment buildings adjacent to single-family properties, 10 feet lower than now allowed.

The committee said any application to rezone single-family, horse-permitted property should be denied to help maintain a community “where horse owners can live and be close to the trails of Griffith Park.”

Also recommended was a requirement of 20-foot landscaped setbacks separating most apartment buildings from single-family homes with horses. City regulations now require a five-foot setback.

New apartment buildings also would have to provide two parking spaces per unit regardless of the number of rooms in the unit. The city’s zoning code now requires two spaces only for apartments with two or more bedrooms.