Burbank City Council Rejects Plans for 33 Hillside Homes

A developer’s controversial plan to build 33 single-family homes on his hillside property in Burbank was rejected Tuesday by the Burbank City Council.

Council members said the project proposed by developer Sherman Whitmore would harm the environment.

Whitmore said he would submit a new proposal asking for permission to divide the 60-acre site into only 17 building lots.

“I expected this,” he said of Tuesday’s vote by the council. At issue was Whitmore’s request for a change in the land-use classification of part of the property from mountain reserve to single-family residential.

The Burbank Planning Board last month denied Whitmore’s request by a 4-0 vote, marking the second time in two years it had rejected Whitmore’s plans for the 60-acre site.

City planners reported to the planning board that the project would cause “several significant unavoidable adverse environmental impacts,” including damage to wildlife and “the aesthetic change involved in changing a portion of the hillside from a natural to a man-made state.”

The site is part of 185 hillside acres that city officials had tried to buy for parkland. Despite receiving $3 million in state aid to help pay for the land, City Council abandoned the effort last week, saying Whitmore was asking too much.