Long-Awaited Hillside Building : Policy Moves Close to Adoption : Development: The City Council has concluded hearings and is expected to vote Tuesday. Allowable density, the most sensitive aspect, remains undecided.

Adoption of a long-awaited development policy that will dramatically alter the type and amount of construction in the remaining 1,500 acres of undeveloped, privately owned Glendale hillsides is expected next week with the conclusion of City Council hearings on the controversial issue.

Almost 100 homeowners, business and civic leaders, developers and consultants turned out for a special meeting Tuesday night to present their final, and most compelling, arguments on an issue that has been debated for decades and studied intently for the last year.

With dogged determination, Mayor Carl Raggio said the five-member council expects to vote Tuesday on a complex series of issues that will formulate a new policy--including the most sensitive aspect, allowable density. After four public hearings, the city Planning Commission last month recommended passage of a stiff new development ordinance, but the panel was unable to agree on density.

The vote, including the as-yet undecided density issue, will take place sometime after 6 p.m. in the council chamber at City Hall, 613 E. Broadway.

Three council members who will retire from office April 12--Raggio, Ginger Bremberg and Dick Jutras--have vowed to settle the hillside debate before their terms expire. In the audience Tuesday night were many of the 15 candidates competing to fill the three seats in the April 6 municipal election.

City Manager David H. Ramsay told the council this week that the proposed 155-page hillside development ordinance--as well as guidelines for landscaping, building design and preservation of open space--”is indeed a complex matter.” He predicted that a new policy “will not be the be-all and end-all” of debate over the issue but urged the council to “stick with the spirit and basics of the ordinance.”

The city’s current hillside preservation ordinance, adopted in 1981, permits one to three units per acre in areas designated as very-low-density residential/open space, depending on the steepness of the slope. The ordinance was based on the 1972 Open Space Element--now considered outdated--of the city’s General Plan. Many residents argue that those rules permitted far too much development. They pointed to recent subdivisions as examples of overdevelopment.

Despite objections from business leaders and developers, an ad hoc committee appointed by the city has recommended that as few as one unit per five acres be permitted in hillside zones. The committee also recommended that subdivisions with clustered housing be encouraged to preserve open space, but even then, density could be limited to only 1.5 units per acre.

The new ordinance, unlike broad and generalized rules in the old standard, will be far more complex and stringent, providing specific guidelines for hillside development based on the steepness of terrain and the habitat, streams, woodlands and other mountainous features, Planning Services Administrator James Glaser said.

Lot sizes would be increased from a current minimum of 7,500 square feet to 14,500 square feet. The slope of cuts into hillsides would be less severe, and height limitations significantly lowered. Design of houses would have to conform to hillsides, with pads cut at several levels down a slope, rather than one large cut to create a flat pad used to accommodate conventional-design construction, Glaser said. The new guidelines will be incorporated into a proposed new Open Space and Conservation Element required by the state as part of the city’s General Plan.

Developers argue that the recommendations would make any development on the hillsides economically unfeasible. They point out that almost all of the hillside development that residents consider to be ugly was done under standards that existed before adoption of the 1981 ordinance.

A USC study released by the Chamber of Commerce last month warned that stringent guidelines recommended by the city planning staff could be economically disastrous and rob the city of new homes, jobs and retail sales. In a detailed rebuttal, Planning Director John McKenna challenged the conclusions in the USC study as faulty. Some officials criticized the release of the report as a last-minute ploy by the chamber to derail the hillside development debate.

Members of Deer Canyon Oakmont Property Owners Assn. on Tuesday presented an alternative compromise that generally would allow about one housing unit per acre in steep hillside areas. First presented to the Planning Commission last month, the complex formula was developed by William Read, a chemist and mathematician with Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a director of the homeowners group. Read said he designed the formula to allow slightly greater density of development with less drastic grading of the hillsides.

“There are, perhaps, no right answers” to hillside development issues, McKenna told the council. “There is some flexibility. . . . There are choices to be made here.” He said the council is “facing difficult challenges” and urged that members develop policies allowing “reasonable . . . and sensitive development in the hills.”

Hillside Development Guidelines Five key elements are incorporated into proposed policies on future hillside development expected to be adopted next week by the Glendale City Council:

An Open Space and Conservation Element of the city’s General Plan, mandated by the state, would set priorities for preservation of the most valuable undeveloped hillsides, some of which may be bought by the city from private owners.

An amendment to the city’s Land Use Plan will determine allowable density in future hillside development--the most controversial issue.

A hillside development ordinance would set rules for grading and subdivision, including the steepness and width of roadways and height and slope of permitted cuts into the terrain and ridges.

Design criteria for new homes would require multilevel units configured to hillsides rather than conventional houses built on manufactured flat pads.

Landscaping requirements are intended to restore the natural appearance of hillsides after grading and to sustain the native habitat.