Residents Protest Redevelopment : Planning: Glendale officials say the proposal is still in early stages. The area along the city's western border is largely industrial.

By MARTHA L. WILLMAN

March 21, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

News that Glendale is planning a second redevelopment zone in a largely industrial area along the western border of the city has angered hundreds of residents.

Residents say the plan threatens the value of their homes, which could be included in a redevelopment project and marked for demolition.

City officials this week, however, said residents are overreacting and that their fears are premature.

Boundaries of the proposed zone along San Fernando Road will not be determined for about a year, and only after a series of meetings with property owners and businesses, said Ruth Martinez, assistant redevelopment director.

The anger erupted after Ginger Bremberg, chairwoman of the Glendale Redevelopment Agency, told an audience at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in late January that the city is planning to form the redevelopment zone to get rid of blight in the industrial area and to develop an innovative new transit corridor and stations.

A newspaper report of Bremberg’s comments included a map showing a large residential area that may be included in the redevelopment study area.

Residents said they were upset by the news and feared that their homes would be gobbled up by the redevelopment zone and property values lowered. Many said they stopped making repairs and improvements because they doubt they can recover their investment.

A group of about 20 community organizers formed this month and called a meeting last Thursday, which drew several hundred residents to Franklin Elementary School, near the proposed redevelopment study area.

“Some people were very emotional, some were very upset,” said Martinez, one of three city redevelopment officials who attended the meeting, including the director, Jeanne Armstrong. Some comments by city officials drew boos at the standing-room-only meeting, she said.

Several residents voiced objections Tuesday before the Glendale Redevelopment Agency and again at a meeting of the City Council, whose five members also serve as the agency.

“You don’t let your adversary get the high ground,” said Martin W. Webber, who said he wanted to “get on the record at both meetings.”

Webber has lived 44 years in a tiny pocket of the Grand Central industrial area in a neighborhood most threatened by the redevelopment project. The hidden five-block area is an enclave of 88 modest homes surrounded by factories, warehouses and businesses.

City planners in 1984 proposed to rezone the residential area, bounded by Truitt Street, Paula Avenue, Hazel Street and the Golden State Freeway, for industrial development. Residents complained that the neighborhood would soon disappear if incompatible uses, such as a dog kennel or all-night machine shop, were allowed to move in. The City Council dropped rezoning plans in the wake of a public outcry.

Now, residents say they fear that their neighborhood is threatened again.

“We’ve had trouble with city government ever since we moved in,” said Webber in an interview Tuesday. “The city of Glendale doesn’t want this residential pocket to stay where it is.”

He told the council, “We folks that live down in that area feel very close to it. We don’t want anything to change the residential nature of that place.”

Many residents who have complained to officials said they are concerned that the proposed redevelopment zone also would encompass the Riverside Rancho area of Glendale, a mix of homes, horse-keeping lots, stables and industry adjoining Griffith Park. However, city officials this week said that the fears are based on misinformation and that there are no plans to extend redevelopment west of the Golden State Freeway.

Mayor Larry Zarian told protesters Tuesday, “We are not going to do anything that is going to be detrimental to the homeowners.” However, he warned that some residential streets in the future may not fit with redevelopment plans.

City officials also have attempted to soothe homeowners’ fears, explaining that state law requires that owners be paid the highest market value for their property if it is needed for a redevelopment project.

Residents said they intend to form a homeowners group and to hire legal counsel to protect their neighborhoods. They charge that property values have fallen just because the city is considering a redevelopment zone.

Several city officials said residents are premature in their protests. The Redevelopment Division in April expects to ask the agency to begin surveying an area with broad boundaries to provide for wide input from property owners who may be affected, Martinez said. Drafting the actual boundaries for a redevelopment zone may take 10 months, a year or more, she said.

Councilman Carl Raggio admonished opponents to be calm: “A snowball gets to rolling and the next thing you have is panic. . . . The one thing I do want to stem right now is panic. . . . I doubt that everyone has put up a ‘For Sale’ sign.”

The city for years has considered designating a redevelopment zone in the industrial area bordering the Golden State Freeway. Such a designation would allow the city to collect property tax dollars that otherwise would go to the county. The revenue could be used by the city to buy property and promote new development.

The downtown area along Brand Boulevard and Central Avenue is in the city’s current redevelopment zone, formed in 1972. Designation of the zone was the key to the development of the Glendale Galleria shopping mall and the emergence of the downtown high-rise district.

The new redevelopment zone in the industrial area would be formed to eliminate blight, spur economic prosperity and develop a transportation corridor, officials said, although specific plans have not been revealed.

The city in 1989 purchased the Southern Pacific train station at the south end of the city, and plans to turn the station into a transportation center. The city also is considering building a second station at the northwest border, in the Grand Central area. Redevelopment funds could be used to partially pay for the projects, officials said.

Bremberg said in an interview Tuesday that the city is “taking a vigorous, vigorous approach toward developing a transportation center. What we need there is a redevelopment zone to pay for it.”