Environmental Report Issued on Development

This city’s most acrimonious development battle is heating up again after the release of a long-awaited report on the environmental impact of a proposed 572-home project in the Verdugo Mountains.

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 on which to build homes in Glendale. The project would be among the city’s largest in recent years.

Environmentalists consider the same land as pristine habitat worthy of protection for its oaks, sycamore, deer and bobcats.

“This is the glen in Glendale,” said John Yard, a conservation chairman for the Sierra Club, as he walked past grazing deer and stands of sumac, sage and oaks at Camp Max Straus, a children’s camp bordering the Gregg property. On Tuesday, Yard was accompanied by other environmentalists and Assemblyman Jack Scott (D-Pasadena), who has decided to oppose the development.

While opponents decry Oakmont as an intrusion into one of just six riparian oak forests in the Verdugos and a negative impact on one of four permanent streams in the range, Lee Gregg disagreed.

“We will only touch the south fork of an unnamed tributary of Engleheard Canyon,” Gregg said. “The side tributary would be filled in. . . . We won’t touch the main canyon.”

Environmentalists said last week’s fires in Glendale and La Canada Flintridge should serve as a warning that hillside development is at risk for wildfires.