BURBANK : City Council Backs Rancho Rezoning

The Burbank City Council has given preliminary approval to the rezoning of the city’s Rancho neighborhood, but went against the recommendations of a citizens advisory committee by adding a department store as a potential use for the site of a former Vons supermarket.

“Please pass this; get it done,” Greg Schieffer told the City Council before the vote Tuesday. Schieffer, manager of the Subway shop next to the Vons on Alameda Avenue, which has been closed for two years, said that having a zoning plan finalized, in any form, means business to him.

The Rancho Master Plan, approved by a 4-1 vote Tuesday with Councilman David Golonski dissenting, must get final approval next week. The plan is meant to protect southern Burbank’s Rancho neighborhood, which is noted for properties with horses. City officials and members of the advisory committee said the plan was a compromise between homeowners and business interests.

The temporary narrowing of Riverside Drive for one year had been approved by the council last month as a first phase in the plan.

On Tuesday, the zoning elements, which leave existing businesses alone but limit future development to protect the neighborhood, was given preliminary approval. The advisory committee, which worked two years on the plan, opposed having a department store on the Vons site because of the potential traffic.

But Denis Leon Gray of Alameda Plaza Associates, which owns an adjoining shopping center, said a department store would draw business.

“I don’t think that government should be legislating the content of what a merchant sells,” Councilwoman Susan Spanos said before the council voted 3 to 2 to add department stores to the plan. Golonski and Vice Mayor Bill Wiggins opposed it.