By Mary O’KEEFE

At this point there is not a specific timeline for the Glendale General Plan and the draft environmental impact report (DEIR) should come out after the first of the year, according to a Glendale spokesperson. 

The Glendale General Plan includes many elements including air quality, community facilities, environmental justice, historic preservation, housing and land use. It is the last two – housing and land use – that has filled local meetings with people concerned about the Plan and the elements shared with the public. 

The proposals include city-owned parking lots in Montrose Shopping Park that could become residential developments. 

“The large lot – Number Three – is zoned for R3050 and parking, so it could be both [residential and commercial],” said Bradley Calvert, director of Community Development, City of Glendale, in an earlier CVW interview. R3050 zoning means the property is zoned for moderate density, residential development.

“The other [parking lots in Montrose] have a ST3 zoning,” he added. “Those are a combination of our commercial zoning. With that being said, the ST3 zone does allow residential densities at what we call R1250.”

ST3 zones allow for medium-to-high density multi-family dwellings, which is similar to Glendale’s R1250.

Concerns range from business owners who worry about development and how that would affect their businesses and that Montrose would lose its valuable parking spaces; residents are concerned about the size of additional housing and how that will affect a variety of issues, including fire safety.

In addition to the concerns about Montrose, there are residents who have voiced their concern with the plan for the Glendale Civic Auditorium and other areas. 

A grassroots effort has begun that stresses “No high-density housing on our public parking lots.” The areas of their concerns include Lot 30 at Mountain Street and Verdugo Road, the Civic Auditorium lot, Babe Herman Little League Field lot and the Montrose parking lots including Numbers Four, Six and Three. 

“The thing that I have to continue to caution is that it doesn’t mean that [the City] is or will or anyone can just come and [develop the City-owned property],” Calvert said. “The City owns these properties, the City decides ultimately if anything were to happen at all …. The City has complete control over those properties and the decision of whether or not anything would happen to them at any point in the future – now or 20 years away.”

“There are no proposals for development and, aside from the unsolicited proposal for the auditorium management agreement, there have never been any development proposals,” according to the City of Glendale spokesperson.

At many of the outreach meetings, community members asked for their areas of concern to simply be taken out of the General Plan; however that has not happened. 

“The [General Plan] is moving forward as a whole, will undergo the draft EIR, and then engage [the] community again under the DEIR. We will inform the City Council of the input to various elements when we report back to them after the engagements are completed. The ‘Plan’ as-is, and the follow up or decisions on how and what to move forward with (i.e., the future of the parking lots, potential future interest in them, etc.), rests with Council to determine at a future date,” said a City spokesperson. 

For more information concerning  No High-Density Glendale go to: www.norezone-glendale.com.

A petition against the Montrose parking lot as it is stated in the General Plan can be found at: https://tinyurl.com/yabk2vv3.