Project Critics Crowd Hearing

Hundreds of residents of Glendale and neighboring communities turned out Wednesday evening to weigh in on Oakmont V, a hillside development that proposes to build up to 572 upscale homes in the Verdugo Mountains.

The hearing at Glendale Civic Auditorium was held as part of the public review process for a revised environmental impact report on the Oakmont project. Glendale City Council members ordered the revision because they deemed the initial report to be incomplete.

“There is a legitimate housing need, and this is a legitimate use of the property,� said John Gregg, president of Gregg Artistic Homes, the project developer. “It is impossible to take land and put people on it without environmental impact.�

Gregg was the first speaker of what city officials expected to be about six hours of comment. Most of the 1,000 seats in the auditorium were filled, predominantly with project opponents.

For nearly a decade, “Oakmont� has been a rallying cry for residents and environmental groups determined to protect the 238 acres of foothill woodlands. Its harshest critics point to the third and fourth phases of the Oakmont development--where row after row of three-story mansions jam the hillside, often only 10 feet apart--as an example of bad building run wild.

Max Hobbs, vice president of Volunteers Organized in Conserving the Environment--a group that opposes the development--spoke in favor of preserving the site for recreational use.

“Every city official in this room knows the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has obtained $5 million in state funds and another $3 million [in Proposition 13 water bond money] to buy Oakmont,� Hobbs said. “There are now 8 million reasons� the site should be reserved as open space, he said.

The environmental report review period ends Sept. 17, after which the Glendale city planning staff will decide whether to recommend approval, conditional approval or denial of the project.

Planning commissioners are expected to vote on the project in December before it goes before the City Council for consideration early next year.

As a result of a lawsuit by Gregg Artistic Homes that contended the city was stalling, the City Council is under court order to complete and certify the report by March.