City Proud of Progress Shrugs Off Gag : Burbank: Moving cautiously, the city is proud of its schools, police and other public services. Home values compare favorably with nearby communities.

Every couple of weeks on late-night television, Johnny Carson revives it again, that running gag about NBC’s home in “Beautiful Downtown Burbank.”

Many people in town shrug it off or smile at the intended sarcasm, but it fails to amuse Burbank Mayor Robert R. Bowne, who has lived in the city for 45 years.

“It’s obvious to anyone who drives around that we’re kind of cosmopolitan,” Bowne said. “We’re home to some major corporate players. It’s not like Burbank is some Podunk little town.”

And while the city can boast of impressive business complexes housing Lockheed, Disney Co., Warner Brothers Inc. and Burbank Studios, most people seem to like Burbank’s small-town ambience.

People greet each other on Olive Avenue; their kids walk home alone from school. There’s free parking and a pretty little garden of poppies at the central library. Two concrete eagles guard the steps to City Hall.

To be sure, Burbank has its share of tacky mini-malls and ubiquitous doughnut shops. Litter blows across the parking lot at Toys R Us. The J C Penney on North Golden Mall Street shows her age.

But the downtown crosswalks are neatly squared off with red brick these days, and just down the way, on 41 acres of land adjacent to the Golden State Freeway, bulldozers are pushing Burbank into the 21st Century as they clear the way for a $250-million shopping mall, Burbank Gateway Center.

The mall seems to many residents a sign that Burbank has come of age, and there is in this historic city at the mouth of the San Fernando Valley, a palpable excitement about the mall’s award-winning design, and the stature it will bring the community.

But like everything else in Burbank, the mall was approached with caution. Nineteen years of caution, in which outspoken constituents voiced their determination to preserve Burbank’s quiet, residential flavor.

“Burbank isn’t willing to let the ills of urban America overwhelm it,” said Timothy Crowner, director of pupil services for the Burbank Unified School District, where in spite of a much pubicized incident of student violence and subsequent teacher unrest last year, the dropout rate is about 5% and most students still go on to college or trade school.

“Burbank reminds me of the little Midwestern towns I grew up in, and it’s fighting hard to stay that way,” Crowner said.

John Reade, who directs production services for Disney’s motion picture department, relocated last year to Burbank to be closer to his job.

While he found the move from Marina del Rey a “culture shock,” he also found a 2,250-square-foot, 3-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath condominium with high ceilings, a garden room and a designer bathroom on north Magnolia Street in the Burbank hill area for $250,000.

“What I really liked about it is that it’s not a square box condo. It’s got angles and corners you can do a lot with,” Reade said.

Once he got used to living in Burbank, Reade discovered it to be a friendly, cozy town. He said he likes the coffee shops and the chatty neighbors, the coming shopping mall and the efficient city services.

Real estate agent Jerry Hungerford of The Prudential California Realty took some pride in finding Reade a $250,000 condominium larger than most houses.

Hungerford calls Burbank “a diamond in the rough,” where a house costs less than the same house would cost in the nearby communities of Encino, Sherman Oaks or Glendale, albeit, a little more than in North Hollywood or Sun Valley.

“I like the fact that when you call the Police Department, they come,” said Jeannie Flavins, an Apple Valley native who moved five years ago to Burbank with her husband, Tom, who is now a member of the City Council.

Statistics bear her out. The Burbank police have an average three-minute response time, and showed a 5.6% drop in major crimes last year even as crime rose in nearly every other Los Angeles area municipality, said Capt. Dave Newsham of the Burbank Police Department.

Newsham, a Burbank resident himself, said in many respects living in Burbank is like “stepping back in time.”

“To me,” he said, “ Burbank remains kind of like an island in the megalopolis.”

Once home to sheep ranches, vineyards, peach orchards and briefly even a garlic factory, Burbank sits on a site purchased by San Francisco dentist David Burbank and his wife, Clara, in 1867 for less than a dollar an acre.

Burbank, in turn, sold 9,000 acres to the Providencia Land, Water & Development Co. for $250,000 in 1886. A town was established and the company began selling property, mostly for five-room houses at $400 to $500, in 1887.

Burbank’s population of 93,500 has not grown much since the 1950s. In part, that’s why the city seems to residents pretty much the same as it did in the days when freckle-faced Ron Howard was graduating from John Burroughs High School or even when Debbie Reynolds went to cross-town rival Burbank High.

Generally, the well-to-do residents live along the slopes of the towering, rocky Verdugo Hills that hug the city’s northern boundaries. Prices range from the high $600,000s to a $2.5-million mansion on Viewcrest Drive with a circular oak staircase, leaded windows, an indoor pool framed by 12 French doors and a tennis court overlooking the Los Angeles basin.

Burbank’s scenic views come as a surprise to people who only come to the city to visit the Price Club warehouse store or to catch a plane at Burbank’s regional airport, said real estate agent Hungerford.

For example, Annette Ludwig of Century 21 Larson Realty is listing a newly renovated, two-bedroom, two-bath 1929 Spanish villa with panoramic views from the dining room, living room and bedroom windows that take in everything from Griffith Park to Burbank Airport, from the Glendale and downtown Los Angeles skylines to the Verdugo Mountain range.

A young couple has nearly gutted the interior, installing new wiring, plumbing and central air and heat, laying hardwood floors and reroofing and restuccoing the exterior. The beamed living room, with a fireplace, measures 30 by 18 feet, and the price is $459,000.

In nearby Glendale the house would cost almost $50,000 more, Ludwig said.

Despite the relative values of Burbank housing, the market has not been immune to the soaring prices throughout the region. It is hard to place young families in a first home in Burbank, Hungerford said. He can show them a tiny two-bedroom bungalow that needs work for $172,500, across the street from a larger house he sold for $94,000 just five years ago.

Mo Jones of the Burbank Board of Realtors said the average sales price for a single-family residence in Burbank hovered near $230,000 at the end of February.

In that price range, Ludwig is showing a $279,500, 1,750-square-foot house on North Niagra Street that features 3 bedrooms, 1 3/4 baths, wood paneling, ceiling fans, two Palo Verdes stone fireplaces and a covered patio.

The Flavins, who came from Apple Valley, started more modestly when they moved into their first house five years ago, but they found that 1,000 square feet seemed to shrink with each child. After their second, Megan, was born, they determined to move, but only if they could find an affordable, more spacious house with amenities they needed.

Ten blocks away, they were able to buy a house for $342,500 that had fallen out of escrow. Worried about their children playing near the oversized pool in the back yard, they negotiated to have it replaced with a lawn as part of the deal.

“My priority was getting 1 3/4 baths,” Jeannie Flavins said. “When I found out this house had 2 3/4, I was just doing handstands.

“Our down payment came entirely from the equity in our old house, and now we’re in a place where our family can grow.”

Burbank’s family appeal was also what led Loris Warner and her husband, Donald, to decide to raise their family in the city after their marriage 34 years ago.

Starting in a two-bedroom home for $13,500, they moved to a three-bedroom house in 1962, paying $20,000, and jumped to a four-bedroom, four-bath house on Country Club Drive, paying just $60,000 in 1971. Houses nearby are selling today for $400,000 to $450,000, she said.

A child of Glendale, she at first was slightly reluctant to move to Burbank in 1956 with her new husband: “Glendale was a little snobbish about the (San Fernando) Valley,” she said. Times change, though, and so did Loris Warner, an active member of the Burbank Historical Society.

“I’ve come to very much love Burbank,” she said. “It’s a very close-knit, family-type city.”

AT A GLANCE Population

1989 estimate: 92,131

1980-89 change: 8.9%

Median age: 36.8 years

Annual income

Per capita: 16,081

Median household: 32,355

Household distribution

Less than $15,000: 20.7%

$15,000 - $30,000: 25.8%

$30,000 - $50,000: 26.4%

$50,000 - $75,000: 17.4%

$75,000 + 9.8%