Slow-Growth Plan’s Foes Miss a Chance to Counterattack

One of the hottest issues in Burbank has drawn a blank.

When a proposed ordinance to limit construction of apartment buildings and other large residential developments appears on the sample ballot for the Feb. 28 Burbank election, residents will see an argument from the law’s author, Councilwoman Mary Lou Howard, urging them to vote for it.

If they look for a rebuttal on the next page, they will see nothing but white space. Opponents of the ordinance did not file an argument against it.

“I don’t know why there’s no opposing argument on the ballot, but I’m glad there isn’t,” Howard said. “I’m sure there will be some response to it at the appropriate time. But I think this ordinance is fair. Everyone has to realize there has to be some controls.”

Howard has often contended that Burbank’s single-family home neighborhoods are increasingly being invaded by apartment complexes. In addition, the city’s undeveloped hillsides are being eyed by hungry developers who want to build large housing tracts.

The ordinance would limit zoning changes in residential neighborhoods and force developers to meet stricter environmental and design standards.

But just because its opponents didn’t put their words in black and white doesn’t mean that they intend to be silent. Several developers and real estate agents said they plan to launch a campaign to warn voters about the negative aspects of the measure.

“This is a bad, bad law,” said Thomas Tunnicliffe, one of Burbank’s more prominent developers. “This ordinance has unintended consequences that would take away the property rights of everyone in the city. It would give the outside world, which already has enough bad thoughts about Burbank, more ammunition.”

However, the opposition is anything but well-organized. The Burbank Board of Realtors did not issue a formal statement against the ordinance until Friday afternoon. The group’s president, Mario Iacobellis, said the board had not been aware of the Dec. 22 deadline to place a rebuttal on the sample ballot.

“But we plan to fight this any way we can,” Iacobellis said.

City Councilman Michael R. Hastings is not fighting the ordinance, but he is not wildly enthusiastic about backing Howard. Hastings complained that her ordinance has “no teeth” and would be ineffective. He said it could also be changed by a majority vote of the council.

But he said he supports it because he believes that some kind of development control is needed.

Hastings’ less-than-wholehearted support stems in part from the council’s refusal last year to place his own slow-growth ordinance on the ballot. The two ordinances were similar, but Hastings’ measure, unlike Howard’s, placed a limit on residential development.

The council last year approved a number of large developments in and around neighborhoods of single-family homes. The projects included a controversial 129-home tract on hillside land. Council members also voted to increase density guidelines on some properties to accommodate the developments.

Apartment Rate Up

An average of 186 residential units--apartments, condominiums and single-family homes--were built annually in Burbank from 1974 to 1985. But the rate rose dramatically in 1986, when 1,819 residential units were constructed. In 1987, 1,117 units were built, and planning officials estimated that at least 1,000 units were built in 1988.

City Planner Rick Pruetuz said the city expects an average of 350 units a year to be built over the next 20 years.

Under Howard’s measure, which would become effective immediately, the council would not be permitted to increase density standards, as they did last year, before 1993. Any changes would have to be approved by the council and voters, and further amendments to the city’s general plan, which puts limits on growth, would not be allowed until 2000.

The city would also establish environmental and landscaping standards for apartments or multifamily residences. Pruetuz said a consultant is preparing a study, which will take at least three months to complete, to determine what the standards should be.

Conditional-Use Permits

Until criteria are determined and adopted by the council, all residential projects intended to house more than one family would have to come before the city’s planning board, and the developer would have to secure a conditional-use permit before building.

Howard said the ordinance would increase the opportunity for public comment on development and ensure that such public services as police, fire or utilities would not be strained by sudden growth.

“The citizens will no longer stand by and watch our beautiful neighborhoods slowly deteriorate through the stranglehold of traffic congestion, smog, brownouts, visual blight and the loss of municipal services,” Howard wrote in her ballot argument. “Let’s put the citizens of Burbank back into the driver’s seat!”

Howard and Hastings were the only council members to support a proposed citywide building moratorium in 1985. Howard said she has always wanted to take the issue straight to the voters.

Developers’ Opposition

The ordinance is being opposed by several developers and the Board of Realtors. They said it is not needed because the building of multifamily units has already slowed.

They added that the City Council last year adopted three measures that addressed residents’ concerns about development: limiting the height of industrial and commercial buildings near residential neighborhoods, increasing parking requirements on apartment and office buildings, and creating buffer zones between single-family neighborhoods and neighborhoods with higher density.

“This ordinance is like kicking a dead dog,” said Michael Cusumano, vice president of Cusumano Development in Burbank, another of the city’s largest residential and commercial developers.

“At what point do you keep beating our heads against the wall?” he said.

Small Builders Affected

The opponents said requiring developers to get conditional-use permits for all multifamily dwellings would hurt the small “mom-and-pop” builders.

“Someone couldn’t even build a duplex on their property without going before the city and the planning board, even if their property were zoned for that,” Iacobellis said. “The large developers can handle going through the conditional-use process, but the smaller builders cannot.”

Iacobellis and other developers added that city codes regulating development should not be set in stone. He said the proposed ordinance would have prevented the rezoning last year of several acres in the Mariposa Triangle, a single-family neighborhood where residents are allowed to keep horses.

Since the 1940s, part of the area had been zoned for light-industrial use to accommodate horse stables. But last year, residents protested when a developer tried take advantage of the zoning to build a public storage building.

Bending to the community’s wishes, city officials worked out an exchange with the developer for other property in the city, and the area was more strictly zoned to fit with the surrounding single-family homes and stables.

Opponents of Howard’s proposed ordinance also claimed that it would prohibit the rehabilitation of blighted areas and prevent the reconstruction of existing buildings destroyed by fire, earthquakes or other causes.