Study Waived; Grading on Ridge Seems Certain

After months of private negotiations, Glendale officials have waived an environmental review of a hillside grading project that would lower a prominent ridgeline in the Verdugo Mountains.

Although ridgeline protection has long been a volatile issue in town, the grading project planned is expected to be approved without public scrutiny.

A plan under consideration to swap a large parcel of city-owned land for the developers’ land also is crucial to the grading project, according to public records and city officials, because it would eliminate one reason for public hearings and the approval of the Planning Commission and City Council.

The Gregg Development Co. of Glendale and its principal partners, John Gregg and Salvatore Gangi, plan to cut as much as 70 feet from a prominent mountain ridge, a portion of which crosses city land.

The dirt is to be used to fill a 6-acre depression created during construction of Gregg Development’s Oakmont View. The development company then could build on the subdivision’s last 24 lots, which would be worth at least $5 million.

The grading would remove 25,000 truckloads of dirt from a ridge separating the Oakmont View and Oakmont Woods neighborhoods and open the mountains to further development. The result would be visible from the Crescenta Valley and the Verdugo Canyon, according to city reports.

City officials agreed to the grading project in February after months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, in which the developers agreed to terms designed to lessen the damage the grading will cause. The most important provision, officials said, is that the developers retain contours resembling a natural ridgeline.

Previously, all three members of the city’s Environmental and Planning Board, which determines whether an environmental study is required, had called for further review, including public hearings and action by the Planning Commission and City Council.

The land swap is related to the grading proposal because the city land abuts the hole on the developer’s property and would provide some fill dirt. Gregg maintains that the grading does not depend on approval of the land deal, because less than 5% of the fill dirt would come from the city site.

Giving Up 6 Acres

However, city officials have indicated that they would be hard-pressed to approve any grading on the city’s property, given potential liability problems.

In the swap, the city is to give up six acres in the mountains for a flat residential lot of less than one-third of an acre at the westbound Glendale Boulevard on-ramp to the Ventura Freeway.

Gangi bought the lot more than 10 years ago and had planned to build an office complex there. City officials have turned down two projects he proposed because of neighbors’ opposition.

The city’s land overlooks the Crescenta Valley in an area where houses sell for $800,000 and more. It has views of the city, the Glendale and Foothill freeways in the distance and, occasionally, a red-tailed hawk seeking prey.

City officials said they are happy to get the freeway property because they plan to turn it into a mini-park. They say they consider the deal fair.

‘Mutually Beneficial’

“The swap will be mutually beneficial,” James Rez, then city manager, said when the exchange was revealed in April. Rez said the city land, acquired in another exchange about 25 years ago, “is a problem piece of land for us from a maintenance viewpoint, drainage and all sorts of things.”

Gangi has agreed to pay the city $190,500--the difference in the appraised values of the two parcels: $105,000 for the freeway lot and $295,500 for the mountain property.

City officials said Gangi plans to build his private estate on the mountain property.

However, Gordon Stewart of Western Cities Appraisal, who evaluated the two properties, said he was told by city engineers and the developers’ representatives that the mountain property “is crucial” to filling the hole in the Oakmont View subdivision. “That was the intended use, to fill in the lower elevation,” Stewart said.

The city never planned to use the property except as open space. But a staff report in February voiced the fear that grading in the adjoining subdivision would encroach on it, creating a fire hazard, maintenance problems and ugliness.

With the proposed trade, maintenance and liability will become the responsibility of the new owner, city officials said, and the grading would not have to go through a hearing process.

The project would open access to development in the Verdugo Mountains on land owned by Gregg above the Oakmont Woods neighborhood west of Montrose, officials said. Residents there say further development in the mountains has long been expected, but city officials predict that any new project will be controversial.

Oakmont View was approved by the Glendale City Council in 1976. Plans for the 65-acre project called for moving about 2.2 million cubic yards of earth in three construction phases. In 1986 the developers notified the city of a shortage of fill dirt at the site.

About 250,000 cubic yards are needed to fill a 20-to-50-foot temporary flood and debris basin built 10 years ago, city engineers said.

Two years ago Gregg-Gangi submitted plans to scrape about 7 acres of a ridgeline next to the basin to obtain the dirt. The grading would encroach at several places on a narrow strip of city-owned land that separates Oakmont View from Gregg’s 91-acre parcel above the Oakmont Woods subdivision.

Gregg Development owns the 1,767-foot-high peak and most of the ridge separating the two canyons. A portion of the ridge extends onto city property.

Home sites would be graded to drain onto city land. Channels for storm runoff also would encroach on the city’s parcel, according to city engineers.

Until this year, city officials maintained, in the face of the developers’ objections, that such a big project under state law required additional environmental study, public hearings and approval by the Planning Commission and City Council.

Gerald Jamriska, then planning director, wrote in a memo that the proposal would create a 190-foot cut in a slope that “would leave a highly visible scar.” A city report said it “would significantly and detrimentally alter the existing grade conditions, creating a visible and unsightly cut area.”

Neither side seriously considered leaving the subdivision unfinished, which at one point seemed to be the only alternative. “We would like to see the project completed and over with, instead of just having a big hole there,” City Atty. Frank Manzano said in an interview.

The land swap was proposed by Gangi on Aug. 3, 1987, three days before the grading issue was to be heard before the Environmental and Planning Board. Gangi met with then-City Manager Rez and Councilman Larry Zarian. All agreed that a trade would be “a win-win for the city,” Gregg said.

The day before the scheduled board hearing on the grading project, Gregg sent a letter asking the city to postpone action.

Gregg met with Rez on Sept. 4. In a letter to Gregg dated Sept. 11, Rez wrote that the board’s “unanimous opinion, on an unofficial basis . . . is that there should be an environmental review” of the grading project. Rez added: “I am in no position to overrule their opinion, nor would I.”

Rez also warned Gregg that hillside grading “is a sensitive issue with this council and with a number of the residents in the Oakmont area.”

In an interview, Gregg said he does not recall discussing the grading project with Rez. However, Gregg said it is not unusual for him to talk with Rez and council members.

Gregg and Gangi have been developers in the city for more than 30 years. The campaign kickoff party for Councilman Carl Raggio’s initial bid for election to the City Council in 1985 was held at Gregg’s hilltop home on Beaudry Terrace. Councilman Zarian said it was not significant that Gangi contacted him to propose the land swap. “He could have gone to any one of the other council members,” Zarian said. “He knows them just as well. He could have walked into Mr. Rez’s office on his own.”

Several Meetings Held

After the September meeting with Rez, Gregg and his partners met several times with city officials--mostly Jamriska and key planners--to discuss the grading issue and to offer measures to mitigate potential problems and objections, according to records and city staff workers.

The question of environmental review was brought before the environmental board on Feb. 4. The three members--Manzano, Public Works Director George Miller and Jamriska, who resigned as planning director the next day to take a job in San Diego County as an assistant county planner--ordered staff members to propose measures to lessen environmental damage. These are called mitigation measures, and if agreed upon by both sides, they remove the requirement for an environmental review.

Staff members said they had been told by Jamriska to drop the department’s original recommendation calling for an environmental review.

The city workers said they did not know if Jamriska was pressured into changing his stance or, because he was about to leave the city, had grown tired of battling with developers.

Either way, staff members said, Jamriska’s change was unusual, particularly because he had long taken a hard stance on issues involving hillside grading and alteration of prominent ridgelines.

Refuses Comment

Jamriska, contacted at a planners’ convention in San Antonio, Tex., declined to say whether he was ordered by council members or the city manager to drop the environmental review requirement.

“I can only say that I always did what I believed was the best for Glendale,” Jamriska said. Rez, who retired April 29 after 30 years with the city, could not be reached.

Manzano and Miller said they went along with Jamriska’s compromise because they agreed that it was possible to avert environmental problems.

On Feb. 11 the city’s new planning director, John McKenna, joined the other two in voting to say formally that no further public hearings are required and the council will not act on the grading issue.

The board’s motion found “that although the proposed project could have a significant effect on the environment,” the mitigation measures would be sufficient.

The 11 measures adopted include requirements that “the appearance of a ridgeline . . . shall be maintained,” that trees and shrubs be preserved “whenever practical” and that shrubs and other vegetation be planted to “thoroughly cover the graded area within five years.”

Gregg said city officials “achieved everything that they wanted without putting us to a large expense.”

The swap is scheduled to be brought before the Planning Commission June 13 and before the council June 28, at hearings on whether to let Gangi build his home on the mountain property.

Grading is expected to begin within a few weeks, Gregg said.