Just four years ago, Whole Foods Market Inc. lost a hard-fought battle to build a store in Burbank’s Rancho Equestrian Neighborhood after opposition by a vocal and organized group of residents.
Now, New Urban West Inc. is hoping it can convince those same residents that its plan to build 120 residences there is in their best interest.
So far, the company doesn’t look like it will have much better luck.
In less than two months, residents have organized a strong campaign against the project and showed up in droves at public meetings to oppose it.
But the Santa Monica developer shows no signs of backing down, and with good reason.
Infill projects in older cities such as Burbank present about the only realistic residential development opportunities these days – if a company can even get in the game.
“There are not a lot of properties left in the city that are this big,” said Michael Forbes, Burbank assistant community development director. “We are a built-out city.”
New Urban West built its reputation on large suburban development, but today there is little financing and little demand for such projects. However, Burbank is the home to major companies such as Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., which draw thousands of commuters.
New Urban West saw its opportunity when General Motors Corp. decided to leave a 5-acre parcel in the heart of the equestrian district that GM had used as a low-key training facility since about the mid-1950s.
The developer is proposing to construct 15 three-story buildings with 120 luxury units on the site. The one-, two- and three-bedroom units would range from 750 to 1,750 square feet.
“This is good and an investment in the city that is jobs rich and housing poor. It’s the opportunity for new quality housing near the studios,” said Tom Zanic, senior vice president of New Urban West.
Equestrian lifestyle
But if there ever was a neighborhood where development might not be welcome, the Burbank equestrian district is it. It is made up of 600 homes near the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, where the Santa Monica Mountains serves as a picturesque backdrop and horses trot down shady streets lined with million-dollar homes, nearly all with stables.
The area, bounded by Griffith Park, Victory Boulevard, and Alameda and Olive avenues, was established decades ago and many residents have lived there just as long, pursuing a quiet horse-centered lifestyle.
Whole Foods got a taste of the neighborhood when it proposed building a 60,000-square-foot store on its border. Though city officials and some Rancho residents welcomed the store, the opposition was so strong that the City Council voted 3-2 to kill the proposal – and Whole Foods only needed a few conditional use permits to proceed.
This time around, New Urban West needs an entire zone change from commercial to residential, and it appears opposition to any development is even stronger. Less than two months ago, the developer sent a letter to residents alerting them of the proposed zone change and about 250 residents showed up to a meeting to oppose it, packing City Hall.
What’s more, the project will be formally reviewed by a group of seven residents known as the Rancho Review Board, the only such citizens input group in the city, which submits its nonbinding opinions to city staff. The board’s opposition played a role in killing the Whole Foods project.
Though the new proposed development at 1105 Riverside Drive will not include stables, New Urban West plans to make the project “horse-friendly” and offered to help subsidize the first-year costs of a stable for residents. The units were conceived as condos that would sell in the high $300,000s to high $500,000s, but with a down market, it’s likely that they will be converted to apartments.
“We are talking to lots of people that recognize that that’s a pretty good change (from what’s there now),” Zanic said.
However, while a move from a commercial to a residential use on the property might seem as if it would create less impact, in fact, General Motors has hardly used its 40,000-square-foot facility for years. Occasionally, GM contractor Raytheon Co. uses the building for training, but most of that has moved online or elsewhere. That means the residential development will cause more traffic than currently takes place.
Jay Geisenheimer, a review board member, said she fears a zone change could open up the area to even more unwanted residential development. But if there has to be a change, it should be to single-family houses with stables.
“It’s just a can of worms if the city of Burbank allows a zone change from garden office,” she said. “What makes Rancho is the horse and the rural country feel. That’s what makes this a high-end neighborhood. If you take away the horse, it’s just another neighborhood.”
Can of worms
That kind of opposition is widespread in the Rancho, and New Urban West is not unaware of it. The developer answers that a commercial project could go up that residents would not want.
“We could put a 100,000-square-foot office up pretty much by right,” Zanic said. “But that’s not a direction we felt would be a good fit for the neighborhood.”
New Urban West has built thousands of homes across Southern California since it was founded in 1976, including 2,500 single-family homes in Moorpark’s Mountain Meadows Community in the 1980s, and 3,300 houses and townhouses at Huntington Beach’s Seacliff Partners Community development in the 1990s.
However, it has been focusing more recently on infill projects. Among them are the Temple Lofts, an 85-unit renovation of a Masonic temple in Long Beach, and 80-unit L’Canon Club Apartments in Los Angeles. The developer also is converting a 2-acre research and development property in South Pasadena into a mixed-use development with three-dozen residential units and three floors of commercial space.
Company President Adam Browning said there is no doubt infill housing is a niche developers are focusing on.
“In the urban business, there is less supply and more demand. We also think that the reutilization and recycling of property past their useful life is an interesting business to be involved with,” Browning said earlier this year. “We are taking sites that were built 65, 70 years ago, past their useful life, and revitalizing them and working on creating nicer places that are walkable and fit in well.”
Indeed, the GM site is walking distance to Disney’s world headquarters – and could explain why New Urban West gambled on a far from certain development prospect. It purchased the property in 2009, putting down $200,000 and taking out a $3.25 million loan.
New Urban West has a consultant evaluating the property to determine if a lengthy environmental review process would be necessary for the development. That should be completed in March. If a full environmental impact report is needed, it could take a full year to complete, and the City Council may not review the project for what could be years.
Meea Kang, president of the California Infill Builders Association, said she is not surprised that a developer like New Urban West would shift its focus – and that there might be resistance.
“It’s typical. Change is scary and status quo is what you are used to,” said Kang, who also is president of affordable-housing developer Domus Development, which is based in Irvine but has completed projects in Los Angeles.
“We are growing at a rapid rate from a population standpoint. And if California is going to be able to accommodate that and be sustainable, we need to grow up and not out,” Kang said.
