From:
To: Anthony, Konstantine; Schultz, Nick; Talamantes, Jess; Frutos, Bob; Springer, Sharon Subject: CC meeting 12-13-22 URGENCY ORDINANCE CONCERNS - Date: Monday, December 12, 2022 5:56:29 AM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Dear City Council Members,
Please forgive the length of these requests regarding tomorrow’s meeting, the long term approach to control of our own zoning, and working class family outcomes in Burbank.
I hope you will
consider the issues in this message and the related CA govt. codes.
Tomorrow you will be asked to authorize yet another urgency ordinance necessitated by the state party control and oversight of local laws for cities (like Burbank) that have been redlined out of the democratic process of direct governance by elected officials who’s title ,alone, indicates they were supposedly representing the people living in places like Burbank.
I will continue to privately urge each sitting member to invite our current and future state representatives/ senators (or their top staff) to these hearings to answer to you on the record regarding these matters.
If you want to make a difference, be sure to include, as part of the public record, any response you get from them.
Your constituents are smart enough to know when they
are being ignored, disregarded, and dealt with in-bad faith.
I am heartened to see this is evident in our last minute organization efforts
and so reflected in the
election results.
I
am hopeful that we can achieve more productive outcomes by more straightforward and earnest decisions that make sense to honest Burbank residents in the years to come.
I will
retain this email to show that someone is asking for this now, as I believe those who have no idea about what is about to happen to Burbank will be wondering why their state representation isn’t answering the questions you can ask on our behalf.
I believe it will be easy to make the case and show the very predictable outcome of the unfair red- line-like nature of these arbitrary laws determined by the nearness to the almost unbelievably ironic euphemistic description of “high quality”
public transportation.
It’s the “no duh” and absolute
most stereotypical qualifier for the same bad policy micromanaging of decades past (here and in other states) that is the textbook forecast for destroying huge swaths of urban areas and handing them over to developers who live outside the red line.
Those developers /
trade union
bosses (who
self-servingly bankrolled the useful YIMBYs) will be the overwhelming and only clear winners when carving up Burbank’s former wealth and potential for their own financial gain; at least in terms of residential profit/ value.
For a preview of what’s to come, visit the streets around Sunset and Gower in Hollywood or take a trip to my old stomping ground, Chicago, and visit the Cabrini Green neighborhood. Which, by the way, had almost finished gentrifying last I heard- - without helping any of the people; arbitrarily geographically lumped together and all of similar economic class. The results are what any thinking person would expect for the residents and also for the pockets of the people who built the initial structures, and then the new super expensive condos that replace formerly very dangerous neighborhood high density-uniformly low income class apartments. The only ones who didn’t get rich where the people lived there while the projects were standing.
Please try to save Burbank from those predictable outcomes. While visiting Chi-town please also take note of public transit that can really be described as actually high quality. I rode it just about every day and can attest to its time-saving value.
During the hearing, could you clarify why in the world -- we would not require fire sprinklers in new dwellings given the increased demand on social services without increased funding to keep pace? Why would we enact laws against both our will and better judgement and not include a requirement for enhanced safety? If possible please require sprinklers for health and safety.
Could you tie this back to the legislature, and say that the sprinklers will be required unless state funding in the amount of “x” dollars required for additional firefighter salary/ staff is provided by the legislative body that passed these laws?
Though I am not a lawyer, to me, a few items seem to not have been covered in the law. If you would be so kind as to seek an answer “off-the books” before January, I and I think your constituents would appreciate it. Please consider making this case very publicly to find these answers later – after the state session is in swing to buy at least a year - -before they take away that freedom from their own constituents, as well. If any of the following can be implemented now, please do so.
Each of the following three categories covered in the urgency might be made with language that speaks to their preferred “buzz-words” for lack of a better term. State lawmakers and the party don’t seem to consider or care what happens to all sorts of people, unless those phrases are uttered.
1. For DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS: Environmental protection and air quality preservation is paramount in the Burbank code and State of California laws. Burbank requires a measly TWO trees currently. I propose we increase that to THREE as AN OBJECTIVE STANDARD – and that the required trees be a MINIMUM of 10 FEET APART and 5 feet from the setbacks, and no closer than 8 feet to any structure larger than 300 sqare feet on the property. This, I’m told, will give the trees the greatest chance for survival, along with humanity by helping to clean the air in an increasingly dense urbanized area. Two of the trees should be in the front yard setback, at least two should be shade trees. All new construction including new ADU should be built to this CITYWIDE OBJECTIVE STANDARD. Glendale seems to have strict residential tree development standards that have some of these elements, as a precedent.
Additionally, is there any prohibition in the law for requiring an additional tree for each separate dwelling unit from the main structure? Can the City require an additional tree to enhance air quality and lower power consumption that comes with increased land usage for habitation?
How can our legislators be AGAINST TREES, AGAINST POWER CONSERVATION and AGAINST QUALITY OF LIFE in so-cal, while local leaders can no longer work to ensure these former privileges? Do we really need to leave California to have these things? I hope you will invite our State representatives to an official council meeting where both you and your constituents can question them on these matters and they can at least pretend to listen or care.
Numbers of trees, their exact placements are objective. That is an objective standard.
2. FOR PARKING REQUIREMENTS – to retain self-governance (aka local control), and to protect the valuable time of our neighbors to spend their precious free time with their family instead of trying to find a parking space or live a huge portion of their life on a super slow bus, please consider the following language in Laura Friedmans anti-working class parking bill. AB 2097 - as now signed into law.
65863.2. (a) A public agency shall not impose or enforce any minimum automobile parking requirement on a residential, commercial, or other development project if the project is located within one-half mile of public transit. (b) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), a city, county, or city and county may impose or enforce minimum automobile parking requirements on a project that is located within one-half mile of public transit if the public agency makes written findings, within 30 days of the receipt of a completed application, that not imposing or enforcing minimum automobile parking requirements on the development would have a substantially negative impact, supported by a preponderance of the evidence in the record, on any of the following:
………… (3) The development is subject to parking reductions based on the provisions of any other applicable law.
………………………… AND
(f) This section shall not reduce, eliminate, or preclude the enforcement of any requirement imposed on a new multifamily residential or nonresidential development that is located within one-half mile of public transit to provide electric vehicle supply equipment installed parking spaces or parking spaces that are accessible to persons with disabilities that would have otherwise applied to the development if this section did not apply
Given the above language – can Burbank pass lawful ordinance reducing the normal required to spaces to ZERO, when they substituted with ELECTRIC VEHICLE SPACES and ALSO pass a separate LAW that requires the same number, but now be REQUIRED TO BE EV spaces? Would this reduction not make it subject to ……(3) The development is subject to parking reductions based on the provisions of any other applicable law. ? It doesn’t say which body / level of government the law has to come from.
Further, can the City create a new zone in R1 for situations where actual multiple family/ households are living on one lot that used to be only one family. Especially when the owner isn't living there; thus making it multi-family while the state is in control, and satisfying the language to allow for the requirement of off-street parking EV. This seems to be allowed, correct? Wouldn't this protect streets making enough parking to maintain as similar as possible a situation to current R1 character?
Please visit my neighborhood on Verdugo Ave, beneath Kenneth and Sanfernando – day of the week after 7pm. THERE ARE NO PARKING SPACES on the street. Many apartments here have underground parking, some ground level, some none. If even one new building opens there without parking, all of those families will spend less time together either by taking a slow bus because there is no place to put a car, or by spending 10 or 20 additional minutes a day looking for parking. This turns out to be hours a month, ultimately a few days a year worth of time subtracted from raising their family. The value of those families’ time has been stolen by people who were claiming to represent them. It is not an exaggeration to say their time has been sold and converted to profits to developers who benefited from their lobbyists and special interests who paid to remove those Burbank residents democratic right to self determination.
If you care about these people, democracy in general, and the future of Burbank – I urge you to demonstrate by passing an ordinance that protects those people who no longer have a vote and probably have no idea what’s about to happen to their time with their children. There is no doubt that those of us with garages and driveways will be even further advantaged than we already are.
Who couldn’t reasonably assume Laura Friedmans law increases the advantages wealthy people enjoy, like ease of conducting land speculation business free from government oversight where they don’t even live, and also including the increased potentially better outcomes of wealthy children, who’s parents don’t have to suddenly start adding a nightly cruise for parking/ unloading groceries/ emergency pharmacy run/etc, all resulting in spending less time raising their kids every time they need to move their car?
Unless the STATE provides funding, the City of Burbank should only require the EV for planning purposes and NOT pay for the inspection out of the funds/ fees we collect. The State limits the fees we can collect, and it should rightfully be their burden to undertake all manner of action needed to enforce the laws they pass. This includes funding.
3. For ADU’s 1; I have changed some of my initial skepticism; if a person (owner) is actually living on the land, I can't oppose them using the land for larger families or relatives, or perhaps to rent it out in order to facilitate a better retirement outlook. It’s their land – if we can’t tell the difference from the outside and they offset the increased demand for services, it needn’t be anyone’s business.
However, when it’s simply an ever increasing tenant/ off-site landlord situation in every single inch of the City, we are moving further and further away from encouraging an overall societal situation that offers the greatest number of opportunities for the largest number of people to increase their wealth and dignity by owning their home, and maximizing their free time. It’s hard to believe that the State of California has taken this position where the result is far from those outcomes, but that is the case. As it stands, I cannot see a future generation for our family in California while these situations are allowed to fester.
I am doing everything I can to encourage my boys to choose places to live and contribute where they have real democratic representation, real property protections, and can influence their own immediate rightful concerns. Year-by-year, California seems less like such a place, but for those of an ever increasing minimum level of wealth to access such privileges. This gap appears to increase with each passing year as more and more dwellings are built – the complete opposite outcome of the language used to sell the legislation used to chip away our rights.
To that end; Can the City enact a CITY WIDE RESIDENTIAL PARCEL TAX to cover providing firefighter staffing, policing, increasing recycled water and other high population issues and WAIVE/ REFUND 90 PERCENT OF THE TAX when/for:
a. Tenants are in Traditional R4, Apartment type lots/ Multi-Unit Zoned Lots b. Burbank zoned Mixed use residential
C. (R1) Free Standing homes where the owner lives full time on the lot Wouldn’t this encourage / incentivize the ownership of the units over the profiteering and also protect renters of apartments from bearing the increased tax as well as protect renters of single adu’s, as well serve to off-set some of the strain on infrastructure? Is this universal enough to pass state law requirements? I believe current residents might vote in favor of such a tax to regain some of their power.
Believe it or not, I have ultimate faith in the market economy, because I believe people are smart and will figure out what is best for themselves. Eventually, there will be enough (there might be already) housing supply in conjunction with the other ever increasing non-housing related undesirable California factors to slow the pace. So far it’s less people by the minute (that's what's best for them), and last month Zillow alone showed over 1 thousand open rental units between Burbank, Glendale, and Hollywood (20 under $1600). To me, it's just a matter of what gets destroyed in the process of re-learning the same lesson of the red-lining /redevelopment/ land-grabs of the past. La Canada, Santa Clarita, Malibu, Fresono, Modesto, etc. will come out pretty nicely, but places with “high-quality” (wink-wink) transpo will be where we stack up the widget-makers this time around, apparently. I imagine it was an easy vote for the lawmakers in those other areas, knowing all they have to do is keep public transportation out while the cities like Burbank get thrown under a slow moving, all-day-to-go-to one place bus.
On my street I am aware of at least two properties that were formerly places where a family had roots and a long-term stake in the daily quality of life in Burbank. There's now huge rent-sign/ business signage staked into those money makers' front yards. Why is this allowed if we are trying to encourage ownership, and discourage speculation in R1 areas? We don't allow other business signage for R1 properties used as day-to-day businesses, to discourage them from becoming more defacto-commercial character areas.
The rent that is being advertised by this business that was formerly a residential house is listed at over 8,900 a month, for the main house and almost the same for the adu (near as I can tell).
For reference, it has not been sold/remodeled for over 20 years, and my mortgage from only 9 years ago was about half that.
I have seen new tenants rotate out at least twice a year. It’s not a B&B and it’s not helping any of those people who cycle through to get ahead. It’s greed, and it’s the legacy of Laura Friedman and Anthony Portantino's overreach in lawmaking along with a distrust in both democracy and their own constituents to govern themselves. Please don’t waste anymore opportunities to represent us, and express these views; use your direct line to the people who can actually change these laws right now, this coming year.
We get form-letter, cookie cutter, party line, buzz-word fill in the blank type responses – but we’ve heard you all say they at least hear you out on their personal cell phones.
Please do not squander this opportunity nor wait until too many of those properties incentivize more of us to look elsewhere to live, and put us in positions to also view our homes here in the way our state overlords do, as simply a monetary proposition in a State where even the weather doesn't live up to reputation of the previous generation.
Most of you have my number, happy to discuss this if you like. I assume based on lack-of interest - we aren't pursuing mixed use, mixed income type projects that I advocated for, but if that ever changes - I remain interested in that significantly better approach to trying to open opportunity (which is way more important) alongside housing for people.
To those of you not returning next session, thank you for your service to the City. Best wishes to you all for a happy holiday season.
Best regards,
Simon Hammel
Burbank resident