Fight Over Glendale Site Heats Up
This city’s most acrimonious development battle is heating up again after the release of a long-awaited report on the environmental effects of a proposed 572-home project in the Verdugo Mountains.
With a fresh copy of the environmental impact report in his day pack Tuesday, Sierra Club member John Yard toured land near the site, saying he hoped to re-energize the decades-long fight to stop the development, Glendale’s largest in recent years.
“This is the glen in Glendale,” said Yard, a conservation chairman for the Sierra Club, as he walked past grazing deer and stands of sumac, sage and oak at Camp Max Straus, a children’s camp that borders the property. “Our objective is no project.”
Last week’s release of a report about the Oakmont View V project has reset the clock for the project. The tentative tract map application, which was ready for review a decade ago, could now come before the Glendale Planning Commission in June.
For decades, the landowner and developer, Gregg’s Artistic Homes, has viewed the 238-acre property as one of the few remaining large parcels for new homes in Glendale.
Environmentalists consider the land as pristine habitat worthy of protection for its oak, sycamore, deer and bobcat.
On Tuesday, Yard was accompanied by Assemblyman Jack Scott (D-Altadena) and environmentalists who oppose Oakmont. Scott, who is running for state Senate, said he joined the fight this year because he is “consistent in recognition of protection of the environment,” and the upcoming election is not a factor.
Scott suggested buying the land for parkland, citing the recent work of state Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who was able to get a $5-million appropriation toward the land purchase in the latest state budget signed by Gov. Gray Davis.
But Lee Gregg, vice president of Gregg’s Artistic Homes, said selling has never been an option. In past news reports, he said a 1991 appraisal put the property value at $46 million, a figure that may have changed.
“The property is not for sale,” he repeated Tuesday. “We are in the business of building homes. . . . There are very few lots in Glendale available except for Oakmont. We didn’t buy it for speculation. We bought the land as a first ingredient for homes.”
The discussion about purchasing the land is political grandstanding, Gregg said, because his firm doesn’t want to sell and politicians have not threatened to seize it by condemnation. “They say they would never condemn it,” he said. “So, stop talking about it.”
The controversy has played a central role in Glendale politics. The City Council created an ordinance limiting hillside development in 1993, planning to apply it to Oakmont. The measure would have limited the development to one-sixth of what was planned.
Gregg sued, claiming it was illegal for the city to apply more stringent rules because his project met 1992 regulations. In 1996, the city backed off, agreeing to consider Oakmont under the old development rules in return for Gregg’s promise not to pursue the lawsuit.
Environmentalists said last week’s blaze that swept through Glendale and La Canada Flintridge should serve as a warning that hillside development is at greater risk for wildfires. They also said Oakmont would intrude into one of just six riparian oak forests in the Verdugos and would also negatively affect one of four permanent streams in the range--a tributary in Engleheard Canyon.
Gregg disagreed, saying the development “will only touch the south fork of an unnamed tributary of Engleheard Canyon.”
“The side tributary would be filled in. . . . We won’t touch the main canyon,” he said.
The EIR is a complex document citing technical studies of the project, but it does not make a recommendation, Gregg added. That is up to city officials after public input.
Kim Christensen, a Glendale city planner, said the lengthy environmental report can be viewed by the public at the city’s planning division office on the second floor of City Hall, at the reference desk of the Glendale Central Library and at the Montrose-Crescenta Valley Library branch.
The report will also soon be posted on the city’s Web site at https://www.ci.glendale.ca.us.
Written comments about the EIR from the public can be dropped off or mailed during the 90-day comment period that ends March 22. No e-mail will be accepted, Christensen said.
Oral comments will be recorded at the public hearing planned for March 6 at the Glendale Civic Auditorium. City officials expect it to last until midnight.
Local environmentalists have “never seen such a firestorm” of public outcry, Yard said. “We expect it to be a big meeting.”
* Written comments about the EIR should be hand-delivered or mailed to: Glendale Planning Division, Glendale City Hall, 633 E. Broadway, Room 103. Glendale, 91206.
