Burbank Restricts Businesses Near Metrolink for Now

The Burbank City Council on Tuesday adopted an ordinance restricting new businesses in the area around the Metrolink station while city planners draw up a long-term development plan for the area.

Council members want to see the area, dubbed the Multi-Modal Transit Center, to become a hub for new jobs. They expect it to fill up with office buildings, shops and restaurants after the recession ends and the commercial real estate market picks up.

The now largely industrial area is bounded by Burbank Boulevard on the north, Verdugo Boulevard on the south, Front Street on the east and a flood control channel on the west.

“It’s very typical that where you have a transit center, you concentrate a lot of growth,” said Rick Pruetz, a Burbank city planner. “Bear in mind the office market is rather sad these days, but eventually this would be a good area for office space.”

The ordinance restricts new businesses that are deemed incompatible with the city’s goals for the area.

Those goals are still being drawn up by city planners, but the city wants to discourage some current uses of land in the area, such as “rabbit and poultry slaughtering, stone grinding and chromium metal plating,” Pruetz said.

With the new rail service, the area has become a “gateway for the city,” Pruetz said, and city officials are concerned about the ambience of the area. He said the city is collecting data on traffic patterns and pedestrian use there.

“That whole corridor is in transition,” Councilman Tom Flavin said. “The long-term uses may well be in commercial or high-density residential development. These transportation centers are going to serve as magnets for new development.”

The development restrictions do not affect businesses that have already applied for new or revised use permits.

“It would not allow any new use during the interim control ordinance other than the Multi-Modal Transit Center,” Pruetz said.

In other action, the council, acting as the redevelopment agency, postponed voting until Dec. 8 on an unrelated proposal for a permit to construct a 129,000-square-foot office building at Empire Avenue and Ontario Street near the Burbank Airport. The parcel is part of 20-acre site that was formerly owned by Lockheed Co. and was sold to the city in 1990.

NEXT STEP

The restrictions adopted by the Burbank City Council on Tuesday will remain in effect until July. In the interim, city planners are completing studies of feasible uses for that area and are expected to provide the council with a more comprehensive development plan early next year. The City Council would then study that plan and enact any necessary ordinances.