Building Burbank Empire Center is playing with poison

David Gordon

Town crier Will Rogers barely got over lamenting the death knell of

Burbank’s very unpopular Framework for Settlement agreement to resolve

the airport controversy in his Leader commentary (“Pulling plug on

Burbank’s beauties,” Feb. 2), when he leaped headlong into the Empire

Center Project.

Will seems disturbed that a few “attention-hungry critics” of the

Empire Center Project Environmental Impact Report -- otherwise known as

concerned citizens -- who spoke at the Jan. 31 Planning Board Hearing are

heralding a new era of this “community’s infinitely harsher attitude

toward all future business development.”

To his credit, Will did mention a few important aspects of the massive

$200-million project slated by Zelman Development Company for the former

103-acre Lockheed “B-1” property. Once again, Rogers mocked citizen

concerns. Most disturbing, only a handful of individuals seemed aware

there even was a Planning Board hearing to receive public comments on the

largest retail-office-hotel development ever undertaken in Burbank. Was

this the start of another “stealth” project at the B-1 site preparing to

sail right through City Hall, undetectable to all but a handful of inside

staffers?.

Interestingly, Community Development Director Bob Tague challenged

Planning Board Chair Dr. Bud Hunt’s assertion that perhaps there was

inadequate notification of potentially impacted residents. Tague seemed

to suggest the reason only six speakers showed up was that the rest of

the community might not be interested in the project. Fortunately, Dr.

Hunt, a dentist by profession, has experience in pulling teeth. He was

able to extract from Tague an acknowledgment that notifying the thousands

of people living and working within a 1,000-foot perimeter of the

gargantuan project just might increase their interest in attending

subsequent public hearings.

Let’s take a closer look at a few of this project’s potential impacts

that super sleuth Rogers failed to reveal when expressing his “enormous

empathy for staff and council members who during public reviews likes

this one face constant public smears that run the gamut from allegations

of corruption to charges they eagerly endanger lives.”

First of all, an Environmental Impact Report is the legally required

mechanism under the California Environmental Quality Act to inform the

public of projects that may have significant impacts on a community. In

this instance, perhaps more than any prior Burbank development, it is

vitally important that the community be aware of this report. Why?

The project will be built on a Superfund Site, a location deemed so

toxic by the federal government that intense cleanup efforts, such as

Lockheed’s vapor extraction system, are necessary to protect the public.

This is usually done at great expense to those responsible for the toxic

contamination. Although in this instance, the polluter, Lockheed, was

able to recoup a substantial amount of the cleanup costs from the federal

government.

Another significant element of the project contained in the report,

which Rogers failed to note, was Lockheed’s “Covenant and Agreement to

Restrict Use of the Property.” This very site, which we are being told is

safe to develop, is viewed in a more circumspect way by Lockheed.

Lockheed’s “covenant” restricts and prohibits the following uses on this

property: residences, a hospital, schools for those under 21, a day care

center and any permanently occupied human habitation used for purposes

other than business or industrial.

Plus, no one “shall excavate, grade, dig, drill or bore the soils in,

on or under the property to a depth below 10 feet below finished grade.”

This restrictive document does not convey the impression that residual

toxic contamination is not significant. Rather, it seems like a “CYA”

(“cover your assets”) strategy, of the kind prudent, high-priced

attorneys would recommend to a client to guard against future liability.

This environmental report, prepared at a cost of $1 million, deems almost every potential impact as either “not significant” or, if

significant, able to be “mitigated” to a level of nonsignificance.

However, this “don’t worry, be happy” perspective is not universally

held.

Here are some concerns of those who have reviewed the report:

1. The city’s failure to mail notices of the Jan. 31 Planning Board hearing to thousands of surrounding property owners.

2. Waiving the normally required permit process for alcohol use or

sale at 13 restaurants and stores; six new drive-thru fast food

restaurants, three operating 24 hours per day; “shared parking” with

fewer parking spaces than is normally required; a car wash adjacent to

residences; 100-foot high office buildings 500 feet from residences.

3. Displacement of at least 13 businesses adjacent to the project site

and an unspecified loss of jobs citywide; established Burbank

supermarkets can anticipate a 25% decline in revenues; the Media City

Center mall, currently with a 30%, will be threatened.

4. Waiving millions of dollars in project impact fees related to

police, fire, schools, traffic and streets.

5. No new programs proposed to monitor the toxic substances still at

the site that might affect workers or patrons.

6. No added protective restrictions on the employment of pregnant

women and women of childbearing age.

7. The environmental impact report estimates a net sales shift of

40-50% from existing retail locations.

8. The report states “The amount of retail space proposed for the

project cannot be supported without the proposed office and hotel uses.”

City Manager Bud Ovrom has already indicated that not all of Burbank’s

recently proposed or approved hotels will necessarily be built.

Perhaps serious-minded residents and merchants, for the sake of their

children, families and livelihoods, will now sit up and take note of what

is passing before them. Burbank residents have a right to protect their

families and voice their concerns about potential threats to their

quality of life, regardless if a rich developer is inconvenienced or

delayed. The concerns of those few citizens who are informed about this

massive stealth project should be commended, not ridiculed.

Founding Father James Madison seems to have had a vision of

development in Burbank when he wrote: “A popular government without

popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a

farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern

ignorance. And a people who mean to be their own governors must arm

themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

* DAVID W. GORDON is a local optometrist and former member of the

Burbank Planning Board. Reach him at 842-2111.