Glendale Hillsides

The Times has editorially criticized the Glendale City Council for agreeing to consider two scaled-down hillside developments by stating that “if Glendale is serious about protecting the dramatic hillsides that grace the city, it should defend the ordinance rather than buckle” (July 28).

In my opinion, the City Council is doing what any smart person would do to achieve The Times’ goal of protecting the hills. The City Council wants to save the hillside ordinance and they realize that the three different lawsuits with multiple causes of action pose a grave threat to the ordinance’s survival. If either Gregg or Polygon were to win just one of these many causes of action, then the ordinance that The Times likes so much and wants defended will be wiped off the books.

If ever there was a case where discretion is the better part of valor, this is it. As you state, negotiation is better than costly litigation in most cases and with the multiple chances of losing, this is certainly such a case.

If council were to follow your advice, the ordinance could be wiped off the books and the likelihood of anything approaching its extremely restrictive provision being readopted is extremely unlikely due to the city charter requirement of a minimum of four council votes and most likely all five votes. The city would then be deluged with new hillside subdivision applications just as they were with apartment applications when the city lost in court on the apartment moratorium. Since the Gregg subdivision was filed with the city before the new ordinance, the old standards apply to it in any event; therefore, processing it in accordance with law means that rather than giving up too much too soon as The Times contends, the council is giving up virtually nothing in return for being able to save the new ordinance.

Seventy-five percent of the irreplaceable hillside land that The Times refers to is already in public ownership. Let’s not lose the ordinance and spend a fortune that we don’t have in a futile effort to preserve the less than 3% of Glendale’s undeveloped hill land that would be disturbed by the Gregg and Polygon projects.

If your goal is truly to maximize the preservation of the hills, then the council is not taking the easy, short-term fix that most politicians grab. Instead, they are displaying wisdom and courage by doing the right thing.

JAMES W. PERKINS

Former mayor of Glendale