Warner Bros. Project Gains Panel’s Support : Development: Burbank planners approve the 20-year studio expansion plan, with some major revisions.

Warner Bros. took one step closer to realization of its 20-year plan for expansion when the Burbank Planning Board early Thursday approved the studio’s master plan with some significant amendments.

The project, which would expand the studio’s two major lots by a total of 3.3 million square feet and increase its work force to 12,000 in Burbank over the next 20 years, sparked a contentious fight with local residents who fear noise and congestion.

The plan will be presented to the Burbank City Council for review Sept. 26.

Residents were critical of the planned parking structures on California Street and Franklin Avenue, a proposed access gate on Pass Avenue for the Ranch Lot, and a Ventura Freeway on-ramp off Pass Avenue.

“There was overwhelming support in the community for the Warner Bros. expansion,” board Chairwoman Carolyn Berlin said. “But parts of the project became controversial. We had to address those issues.”

Warner Bros. executives were less than enthusiastic about the proposed changes.

“This is an entire package,” said Mee Lee, director of governmental affairs for the studio. “We are going to regroup and take a look at the entire plan again and see what the effects are of their recommendations and if we can live with them or not.”

In a marathon meeting that concluded with unanimous approval, board members recommended dropping the Ventura Freeway on-ramp at Pass Avenue as well as three traffic signals along Pass and Verdugo avenues that residents had feared would clog their streets even more.

The board also recommended that an eight-foot wall to be built around the Franklin Avenue parking structure be extended to block off access to nearby neighborhoods and that residents be provided with a view of a landscaped area.

Earlier, in response to residents’ complaints, the board recommended rejection of the studio’s proposed gate on Pass Avenue and restrictions on public access to the Ranch Lot--one of the two lots slated for expansion--to Hollywood Way.

The board also recommended that the Ranch Lot be held to the same standards as the rest of the Media District, which encompasses the Warner Bros. main lot, NBC studios and the Disney studios.

Earlier this week, the board also denied a request by Warner Bros., submitted separately from the master plan, to build a parking structure to serve the studio near California Street. Berlin said the parking garage cannot be separated from the other provisions of the master plan.

Controversy exploded last month when outraged residents of the Toluca Lake area bombarded City Council members and police with complaints that their streets were filled with cars of people invited to tapings of studio shows.

Residents of the neighborhood contended the studio caused the parking problem as part of a strategy to force residents to agree to construction of a two-story parking structure in the neighborhood. The action Thursday was the third time the board had met on the issue. In the first two meetings, unhappy homeowners showed up in such force that additional hearings were required.

At one point, lawyers for the studio argued that the board had delayed too long, and asserted that the City Council should decide the issue directly. The board rejected those arguments.

“Warner Bros. tried to rip the project away from us and go directly to the City Council without having our deliberations, which are important for the public,” Berlin said.

Studio representatives could not be reached for comment Thursday.

As the complaints mounted, Warner Bros. officials tried to compromise with homeowners on parking concerns. They agreed to provide a noise study on the California Street parking structure, eliminate some surface parking near the property edge nearest the neighbors, and pledged to support any effort by residents to secure full-permit parking from the city in the affected neighborhoods.

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Owners of El Chiquito restaurant protested the proposed parking structure on Franklin Avenue because it left only one entrance to the eatery. The studio met with owners and offered to modify plans to provide more access for the restaurant via a new left-turn lane from Olive Avenue, but no final agreement has been reached.

Warner Bros., now Burbank’s biggest employer with an estimated 3,800 workers, plans to build two 15-story office buildings, two five-story buildings and four parking structures on the studio’s main lot just south of the Ventura Freeway at Olive Avenue by 2000.

By 2015, two more 15-story structures would be built, plus a 12-story building, six more five-story buildings, studios and more parking.

On the studio’s Ranch Lot, just north of the freeway between Hollywood Way and Pass Avenue, Warner Bros. plans to build two five-story buildings and a six-story parking garage in the next five years. By 2015, it plans to build three more five-story buildings and a five-story parking garage.