Council Looks at Overhaul of Design Review : Ordinance: The Planning Commission would be eliminated from the process and replaced with an advisory panel. Neighbors would no longer be able to appeal decisions.

An ordinance to overhaul the city’s design review process, eliminating the Planning Commission from hearing appeals, was introduced Tuesday by the City Council.

Councilman Larry Zarian said the measure was prompted by a divisive appeal of a home project on Highland Avenue that pitted the Planning Commission against one of the city’s two design review boards. He said the changes were proposed by the Planning Department after the council said it was unhappy with the current process.

The ordinance would create an advisory body called the Alternatives Assessment Panel which would try to resolve disputes. Applicants unhappy with a design review board decision could make as many as four appeals to the panel on conceptual plans and four more appeals on final plans. After each appeal, the panel’s suggestions would be routed back to the design review board for reconsideration.

From there, either the applicant or planning director could appeal the decision directly to the City Council, bypassing the Planning Commission. Residents living near the project could not appeal but would have to persuade the planning director to appeal on their behalf.

Robert Yousefian and Randy Carter, members of the Northwest Glendale Homeowners Assn., objected to the proposal.

Yousefian said he felt he was “back in Iran,” and that preventing residents who don’t like a project from appealing to the council was wrong. He said later that the only recourse open to residents, if the planning director disagreed with them, would be to file a lawsuit, which would be expensive for everybody.

However, Zarian said in an interview after the meeting that this aspect of the ordinance was not changed. Residents who object to a nearby project, he said, do not have the direct right to appeal under the current ordinance. Still, he said, the addition of the Alternatives Assessment Panel will give homeowners more chances to be heard.

Mayor Ginger Bremberg said later that she tried, but failed, to give residents the right of appeal when the board was created in the late 1980s, and would like to give them the right with the current proposal but has been unable to persuade other council members to do so.

Carter said he believes that the Planning Commission offers needed oversight on projects and should not be bypassed.

Several council members said the ordinance could be changed if it does not work out and added that the proposal to remove the commission from hearing appeals was not motivated by dissatisfaction but because design is not the commission’s role.

However, Bremberg said passing the ordinance would just break the process, which would have to be fixed later. With only a few of the past 2,000 cases the design review boards have heard being appealed to the council, she said, the council has not been swamped with appeals.