Residents Organize to Fight Plan to Build Houses on Hill : Glenmore Canyon: Area homeowners form an association to have more clout in opposing a plan to build up to 61 houses south of Mountain Street and west of the Glendale Freeway.

Angry Glenmore Canyon residents formed a new homeowners association Tuesday night to oppose a plan to build up to 61 houses in a hillside area immediately north of their Glendale neighborhood.

Homes by Polygon, based in Laguna Niguel, is seeking city approval to build the subdivision on 29 acres south of Mountain Street and west of the Glendale Freeway. Polygon also developed the 550-home Rancho San Rafael community just east of the freeway.

The new proposal is undergoing an environmental review and must be approved by the Glendale Planning Commission and City Council before construction can begin. But about 150 nearby residents, who fear that the project will destroy scenic hillsides and aggravate traffic and school overcrowding, vowed Tuesday to challenge it.

“I object to this,” resident Ruth Walsh said. “It’s been like living in the country here, and now they’re going to carve it up.”

Most of those who attended the meeting in the Glendale Academy auditorium signed up to join the new Glenmore Canyon Homeowners Assn. They said an association will give them a more powerful voice in opposing Polygon’s project during the city’s review.

“I think it should make an impact on what they plan to do,” said Salvador Wong, a 20-year resident of Glenmore Canyon.

During the meeting, a city planner and leaders of other Glendale homeowner groups spoke about the review process, the history of the Polygon project and the influence an association can have.

“I learned some things I didn’t know before,” said television documentary producer Rob Sharkey, a Glenmore Canyon resident who organized Tuesday’s meeting. “I think we put an end to a lot of rumors and innuendo.”

In an interview before the meeting, Marlene Roth, the developer’s planning consultant, said she believes that many of the residents’ fears are groundless.

“With any new development, there’s always reason to be concerned,” she said. “But the degree of concern and the issues these people are concerned about are based on a misunderstanding of what the project actually proposes.”

Residents of Glenmore Canyon and adjacent College Hills have complained that the new Polygon houses will increase traffic in their neighborhoods. But Roth said the Polygon project will be a distinct community with no direct traffic links to the nearby neighborhoods.

“One of the things people are most concerned about is traffic, so we consciously developed an alternative that would take traffic off of Mountain Street,” she said. “It’ll be a separate neighborhood. It won’t be intersecting with College Hills or Glenmore Canyon.”

In recent years, Glendale residents have become increasingly vocal in opposing residential developments that they believe mar the city’s scenic slopes.

Because of such concerns, the Glendale City Council in February approved an 18-month ban on new hillside housing subdivisions. During this period, the council will consider new hillside development guidelines.

The Polygon project, however, was one of a handful excluded by the council because its environmental review was already under way.

Most of the Polygon land was purchased from Glendale College through a public auction that drew three bids.

The Tensor Group of Glendale submitted a high bid of $2.55 million in August, 1988. Tensor consulted Glendale officials about preliminary plans for 15 to 24 houses on the site, said Haik Vartanian, chairman of the group.

“The city didn’t really know what they wanted to see developed on that hill as to the number of homes, or whether they would allow it to be developed at all,” he said.

Because city approval was so uncertain, Tensor withdrew its offer to buy the land in December, 1988, Vartanian said.

William F. Taylor, the college’s business services coordinator, said Tensor also expressed worries about an earthquake fault discovered at the site.

By the time Tensor withdrew, the next highest bidder, Urbatech, was no longer interested, Taylor said. The property was then sold to Polygon, which had submitted the third-highest bid, $2.15 million.

Polygon consultant Roth said the developer has submitted two plans for the site. One calls for 47 houses with 9.9 acres of open space, and the other calls for 61 houses with 6.5 acres of open space.

The houses would likely be priced at close to $1 million each, Roth said.

The project would require cutting into some of the hillsides and filling in a canyon area, she said.

James Glaser, a Glendale city planner, told residents at Tuesday’s meeting that a new report indicates that the earthquake fault cited by Tensor does not run through the proposed subdivision.

He told the residents that they will have a chance to comment on the project during public hearings before the Planning Commission and the City Council. One resident asked Glaser about the odds that the new association can halt or reduce the scope of the Polygon project.

“I think they’re better when your voices are coordinated,” he said.