Ex-Assistant to Planning Director Becomes Consultant, Switches Sides : Developers Find an Advocate

Toting a crammed briefcase stuffed with documents, Marlene T. Roth is a familiar face at most Glendale City Council, Planning Commission and zoning board meetings.

And she almost always has something to say. But, unlike the lukewarm reception they typically afford gadflies, officials listen when Roth speaks.

Once the chief assistant to Glendale’s planning director, Roth is now a private consultant to developers and has become her former boss’s most formidable adversary. She guides costly and often complex plans through the tortuous government bureaucracy in Glendale and other cities.

Roth is chalking up an impressive record in getting her way. After a great deal of finagling, she won on Tuesday what she considers to be her biggest victory--assured approval of plans for the 542-unit Rancho San Rafael project, the largest housing subdivision in Glendale’s history.

Understands City Staffs

“I know what city staffs are trying to accomplish. Developers are really willing to do what is necessary. They just don’t understand it--or believe it-- when they hear it from a city staff member. That’s where I can assist,” she said in an interview at her Pasadena office.

For her efforts, Roth charges $90 an hour. She claims her victory ratio is three out of four cases.

Often, Roth wins concessions from city councils, despite protests from municipal planners.

Gerald Jamriska, Glendale’s planning director, often grimaces, frowns or chuckles with disbelief while listening to Roth’s arguments at public meetings. Although their rivalry is a friendly one, Jamriska acknowledges that he is often irritated by Roth’s incessant challenges to city rules and her penchant to bend standards.

“I think there are times when a planner with her ability and education should know better,” Jamriska said. “I get frustrated with any consultant who knows what the standards are but does not follow them. I know they are just doing a job for their client, but I have a difficult time with that.”

Roth, on the other hand, maintains that city planning and zoning rules should be flexible. “Most city plans allow for change,” said Roth, who has represented developers in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange and Ventura counties. “But the staffs often think that change is OK only as long as it is initiated by the city. I think that’s wrong.”

Jamriska concedes that Roth’s arguments are often persuasive to other officials. “She will try to present the facts in her client’s best viewpoint,” Jamriska said, “and, as such, a lot of the issues are not what we consider to be truly objectively presented to the council.”

Jamriska, who said he respects Roth “as a person and as a colleague,” grudgingly allows that she “does a very adequate job” of representing her clients.

Because she helped write Glendale’s general plan when she was the city’s senior planner from 1972 to 1979, Roth knows Glendale’s rules as well as any staff member.

Knows Way Around City Hall

A resident of the Verdugo Woodlands area of Glendale, she also has long-standing ties with community and business organizations and has served on city advisory boards. “She obviously knows City Hall--knows the system--which is to her advantage,” said David Ramsay, assistant city manager.

Roth said her role is to “try to identify what issues are important to the various players and to focus on those areas where there is room for alternatives. Not every issue is one where you stand up against the wall and say, ‘shoot’.”

Roth successfully fought to save the neon rooftop sign on Seeley’s Furniture store on South Brand Boulevard--called the “Red Beacon of Glendale”--by arguing that it has historical significance. Rooftop signs are prohibited by a new ordinance, but, through Roth’s lobbying, Seeley’s was granted the first variance to those rules.

Roth also played a key role in Glendale’s recent adoption of a zoning consistency ordinance in which she fought to protect developers’ rights. Stringent limits on building heights and design originally proposed by the city planning staff were greatly modified at the request of Roth and other community leaders.

She also developed a master plan for a proposed senior citizens’ housing project to be built by Soroptimist International of Glendale and was victorious in a controversial proposal by the Seventh-day Adventist Church to build a 200-unit retirement home in West Covina.

Roth, however, does not always win and concedes that she does not take losing easily. “The most disappointing losses are the littlest ones,” she said, “the ones that hurt the little guy.”

She said she feels “personally bad” about her failure to obtain a zoning variance for a take-out restaurant operator in Glendale who sought to keep some tables without the required number of parking spots. Roth said the city’s denial forced the operator out of business. “That guy was raising his family on that store. While I realize the city doesn’t want to set a precedent, every once in a while you have to forget about all the laws and regulations and look at the effect,” she said.

Observers credit Roth’s success to her tenacity and her unswerving attention to detail. “She is very thorough and very accurate,” said Glendale Mayor Ginger Bremberg.

A former co-worker described Roth as “aggressive in pursuing the planning goals of the city” and said she used “a very strong management style” to achieve her objectives. Other former co-workers, however, also describe Roth as “arrogant” and “pushy.” Roth herself concedes that she is “picky, a little impatient and a perfectionist.”

For instance, Roth made a point to attend one recent meeting at which a client’s item was routinely continued, as scheduled, without discussion. Although she could have skipped the meeting, Roth said she attended because, “I don’t let even routine actions slip by. It’s only routine if it happens correctly. I get protective about my cases and I don’t take chances.”

This week, Jamriska strongly objected that a park to be built in the Rancho San Rafael subdivision would be far smaller than the city normally requires. Roth, who represents the developers, Homes by Polygon and the S. T. MacDonald family, retorted that the park will supplement 190 acres of open space that will be donated to the city. She likened the park to “caviar on an hors d’oeuvre.” The City Council accepted the developer’s proposal.

Roth said she sympathizes with developers who sometimes face seemingly insurmountable problems in gaining approval from a city or county for a project. She said the key element in building any project is its marketability--something she said city planners often ignore.

The friction between developers of the San Rafael project and Jamriska’s staff became so intense two weeks ago that the Glendale City Council ordered the city manager’s staff to intercede. After a series of marathon meetings, the two sides emerged reasonably close to agreement, paving the way for informal council approval on Tuesday, with a final vote scheduled for Sunday.

Sitting in her cramped quarters, cluttered with subdivision maps and development plans in a second-story office in Old Town Pasadena, the silver-haired Roth explained why she gave up city planning to become a private consultant.

“I like the independence,” Roth, 44, said. “I’ve come to know a lot of builders and I see the problems they’re encountering.”

Roth said she now works longer and harder than she did as a municipal employee. “I would not recommend it for a family with 12 kids to support. I’d never been in business for myself; I had always worked for somebody. I just felt it was something that needed to be done,” Roth said.

Roth, who has never married, said she occasionally likes to get away from the office by going camping or backpacking. She said she enjoyed sailing for a while, but eventually sold her boat because she has no time for it.

Some day, she hopes to plan and carry through a real estate development of her own.

A graduate of Fairfax High School, Roth holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in urban geography from Valley State College (now called California State University, Northridge). She worked as a city planner in Burbank, Covina and Monterey Park before joining Glendale. From 1979 to 1980, Roth was director of community development for Laguna Beach.

Roth joined the private sector in 1980 when she was hired by developer Frank Howard of Glendale and Watt Industries of Santa Monica to oversee a beachfront redevelopment project in Oceanside. She opened her independent consulting business two years later.

Now, Roth acknowledges that she has fought for concessions from cities that she personally considered unreasonable, and has won. “I tell people, ‘I don’t think it has a chance, but you’ll never know until you try.’ Even with a 10% chance of rain, it could rain. And it does on occasion.”

As far as Roth is concerned, it rained Tuesday at the Glendale City Council.