From: Sue Cleereman
To: City Council DL
Subject: Agenda Item - N - Related to the Update of Project Appeal Procedures Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2025 1:02:26 PM
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Honorable Mayor and Council Members,
I urge you to maintain our current Appeals Process and Protect Citizen’s Rights of Appeal to be heard before the City Council.
#1 - Citizens Must have the right to Appeal directly to Council, You are our elected officials!
The Staff proposes this ordinance to “streamline the general project review and approval process”, when the reality is Appeals are Not the Problem.
Please ask staff – What was the Date of the most recent development project Appeal to Council?
What project was this?
If Staff is unable to provide this information to the members of the public or they say “they don’t know” --then Why are they Redlining the code and eliminating Citizens right to Appeal to Council?
#2 -- Planning Board members are Not Elected Officials.
When this proposed Ordinance came before the Planning Commission on January 13, 2025 there were only 3 members in attendance.
There was No discussion, the members had No questions of staff or others, and quite frankly I doubt they had any idea what they were voting on. I am sorry, this was very sad and afraid not isolated, and now staff wants to designate the Planning Commission to be the deciding body on future project appeals?
Please review the Resolution and see how Appeals to Council have been Redlined and removed.
This proposed ordinance is Not about streamlining projects, this is about steamrolling the appeals process and silencing the voice of the people.
Ask yourselves -- What significant projects are coming down the pike? If we are unable to Appeal to our elected officials, then where are the checks and balances on future projects?
Sincerely,
Sue Cleereman
Burbank Resident
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From:
To: City Council DL
Subject: End of Building Appeals to City Council
Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2025 10:27:19 AM
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Dear Burbank Council Members,
Residents of the City of Burbank advocated for two years to create meaningful Design Guidelines for New Construction in Burbank. Guidelines which the planning department have many times disregarded in their approval
processes.
Now staff is recommending that certain
building projects no longer be appealable to City Council. They are our elected officials.
City
Council deserves the opportunity to hear from the community, and the community deserves to have their concerns heard.
Don’t allow staff to take away final decision making capability for building projects from the mayor and members of the city council!
Stephen Newman
From:
To: Perez, Nikki; Takahashi, Tamala; Anthony, Konstantine; Mullins, Zizette; Rizzotti, Christopher John; City Council DL; Gavin Quinton
Subject: Feb 25, 2025 CC Agenda Item N- Public Hearing: opposition to PROJECT NUMBER 24-0001518 Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2025 5:35:22 AM
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Dear Madam Mayor and Honorable Members of Council,
Thank you to those of you who have taken the time to speak to me about the hearing and ordinance tonight.
I'd like to present two additional points, as well as a more concise version of the concerns I previously raised, for the record with the hearing. I hope you will ask the staff about these issues during the hearing and consider amendments to improve this ordinance rather than passing what appears to be a deeply flawed version.
Principally, I write to be sure there is a record for my children to help them learn how to ensure that the states where they will call home one day have a better chance resisting the kind of total control by the state into which California has devolved.
I also want people to know
that each of you had a chance to consider these points when it becomes obvious looking at what becomes of our formerly unique city.
First: The state is coercing localities into proving that housing units are being produced in the specific manner, fashion, and quantity that the state arbitrarily and generically deems appropriate in the quantity that the state deems appropriate from hundreds of miles away.
As
you are aware non-compliance runs the risk of the state operatives not allowing access to our taxpayers own funds if they attempt to govern themselves in the way that is normal in most other states.
If the City is required to track the data of exactly how each unit (ADU or otherwise) is used, why not also track how many newly constructed homes are to be owner occupied, or shifting from owner-occupied to rental properties? This would provide insight into whether Burbank & California is becoming more of a place where families can own homes (and what kind: single family lot / or condo) or if it is simply becoming a state dominated by rental properties controlled by investors, where no matter how a family lives, they will be less likely to own their future.
Second, please ask whether the reduction in democratic access to appeals, which Burbank residents have relied upon for decades, is actually mandated by law.
If it is, why would we
not appeal directly to the City Council or change the Planning Commission to be an actual elected body? It should never be that for immediate local concerns the voters can not redress their concerns directly to an elected official.
Appointments are not an acceptable substitute.
If not required, why has there been so little effort to involve the public in this decision?
How
many of the individuals writing and pushing this policy are Burbank residents themselves? Why were there no public information meetings, study sessions, or serious effort to gauge whether residents support stripping away their own robust ability to shape their neighborhoods? The absence of these basic democratic steps strongly suggests that these
changes are being driven by developer interests rather than the needs or balancing the desires with the majority people who live here. At the very least you can not be certain with only a weeks’ notice and 3 minutes of speaking time that you’ve accurately represented the public in the reduction of their democratic access.
As someone who has navigated this process, I know firsthand that without the ability to appeal to the City Council, serious violations can slip through unchecked. In my case, the Planning Board and staff initially failed to enforce height restrictions (and other basic development requirements); Only the looming possibility of an appeal to City Council forced the many corrections that resulted in a house built four feet lower (acceptable to me), and finally complying with the maximum about allowed by Burbank Code, thus satisfying our lawyer through correspondence after the denial of the appeal.
Without this process, only the wealthiest homeowners
—those who can afford to go to court—
would have any recourse when faced with overreach or negligence. Do people on fixed incomes in old established homes deserve less representation? If I thought so, I wouldn’t be writing this letter.
One of the Staff’s stated goals of this policy is to "streamline" the process. I completely agree—this ordinance will absolutely help streamline the decision for many families to leave California in favor of states where they can achieve the standard of living & single-family lifestyle they want. In these places, the film industry and other creative sectors are booming, offering workers the opportunity to own a home with a yard, avoid endless commutes, and participate in family life—all without worrying about sudden 11 th hour zoning changes
demanded by unelected officials on behalf of developers.
As the head of the largest chapter of a youth organization in the San Fernando valley where I lead about 60 families annually , I have been asked for and given advice to many families that desire a “single family-residential” lifestyle, and I have watched them leave because that single-family lifestyle they valued is disappearing directly due to increasingly authoritarian state control and diminishing local governance. They have come to realize that although they have ever-increasing options to rent, they have decreasing options in the type of housing and lifestyle they desire to own as it is rezoned, cut up and sold off into whatever the latest virtuous sounding buzzwords are being used by the political spin doctors to describe these well worn tried and failed schemes.
It is absolutely true that if you work in the arts industry that you can own a good sized house on good sized lot, where you can easily find parking on a uncrowded street after a short commute, in a school zone where your own taxes from your good arts salary afford all the basics (like gym teachers), and no one will build a two story ADU all but right up against your fence overlooking your children privately swimming, and where you have the right to make the primary laws that affect the land where you live….as long as you leave the State of California.
To own a house with just some of those features here, you will likely spend two hours each way behind the wheel of a car, driving to the lot in town while someone else attends the majority of your children’s school events and needs. Do not be surprised about how much bad weather a parent is willing to put up with in a different state in order to be in their children's lives and give them the best possible childhood and future.
The most talented and capable tax-positive earners are leaving, and as they go, the school districts they funded, the volunteer organizations they boosted, and the industries that once defined California—including the film industry—are growing exponentially elsewhere, while they visibly decline in Burbank. I still hold out hope for a turnaround, but if policies like this continue, California will continue to lose not just families but also its competitive industries.
Our current expectation is that we will follow our children to the kind of place we teach them (and show them 2 months a year) is better in whatever State they choose after high school.
Thirdly, the decision to require a resident to have high-level working knowledge of the municipal code with only 10 days to get public records requests which have been instrumental in getting projects altered to comply with the law (even in cases where they are denied) is so totally unrealistic as to make the appeal process for all intents and purposes totally defunct.
I
only got a call the day before this hearing (about the hearing) with a planner from a request made over a week ago.
The final decision on local zoning should always rest with an elected body, accountable directly to the people who actually live and pay the taxes there. If the Planning Commission is to be the final authority, then the public should have the right to elect its members. Anything less is a move away from democracy and toward bureaucratic rule by those who are unaccountable to the very people whose neighborhoods they are reshaping.
It should be no surprise at all if new types of development events with similarly disastrous results to the totally avoidable travesty of sticking a high-volume, all-hours, chicken finger drive through right in the middle of a sleepy neighborhood become a normal occurrence.
However, now the public will have even less time and options to redress those kinds of grievances.
Lastly, there should be a formula that rezones that the public gets to weigh in upon, as part of this ordinance, as to exactly how and where rezoning will take place. As of now, just the ordinance is arbitrary and proposed by unelected staff or appointed commissioners with very little public input.
I urge you to seriously consider these concerns and make amendments to ensure that Burbank’s future remains in the hands of its residents. Please do not reduce the appeals process in any way. Please also do not conduct any reporting to the state unless the state pays all of the costs to the City to conduct the work. It may be best to delay this hearing to give more time for people to weigh in and all members of the Council to be present.
Best regards,
Simon Hammel
Home owner, Dad, and 18 year resident in Burbank
ps-
For those of you unfamiliar with the details of the appeal I filed, we’d be pleased to meet with you if you wish to learn more. Most people who view the materials are shocked by the way in which the project was handled and walk away with a very different view of what the City published in the matter.
pps - my conversation with the City planner was very nice. I will disclose her name privately if you wish to speak with her. She said she was getting teary eyed as I described (see above) the very decision that she and her husband discuss "at least once a week" in her words, to leave to provide a better life for her daughter.
From: Ann Baba
To: City Council DL
Subject: public input
Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2025 10:57:59 AM
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City of Burbank Council Members:
Does the council represent residents of the City of Burbank, or the Office of Community Development?
City Council members are elected by the residents of the City of Burbank, not elected by the Office of Community Development.
City Council, hopefully, knows that a democracy relies on input from its residents. When one position or office, in this case, the Community Development Director and the Department of Community Development, makes all decisions, democracy ceases and a dictatorship commences.
In the interest of maintaining a democratic process, enabled by a City Council that represents the residents who elected its members, I urge a vote that CONTINUES TO ALLOW community input. I consider this process so important to democracy, that I will follow how individual City Count members vote. I vote for only those members who represent the people who elected them.
By the way, where do funds from appeals ($1,100 per appeal) go? This is public accountability.
Ann Baba
Burbank resident and voter
From: Prescott, Patrick
To: Takahashi, Tamala; Hess, Justin
Cc: Padgett, Courtney
Subject: RE: Questions for tomorrow night
Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2025 1:08:48 PM
Vice Mayor,
Planning staff has provided answers to your questions below. We have also received some correspondence on this item which you have also received.
Patrick
Q1: Which elements of the changes are to align with state law? A1:
• All of the proposed amendments are consistent with the state mandated and Council approved and state certified Housing Element and CEQA law, as well as recent laws for notification periods (AB 2904)
• These amendments are necessary to help reduce constraints on housing development and streamline project review.
Q2: How do we plan on enforcing the requirement that the appellants only address the items in the appeal?
A2:
• Appellants will be required to specify on the application form what the ground for the appeal are and will be limited to challenging the decision only on the findings or objective standards.
• Staff reports and related documents will only focus on those items and will be made clear in all published materials
Q3: With the mixed-use change from CUP to AUP, will there still be notices and still be an appeal?
A3:
• Yes, all current notification procedures will be maintained and there will be a newspaper notice, 1000 ft mailed notices, an on-site posted sign and the items will be on the City website and there will still be the right to appeal to the Planning Commission
Q4: Maybe an updated timeline of the steps of the appeal process, in visual, might be helpful? A4:
• Staff’s presentation includes flow charts that visually represent the existing and proposed appeal process
• Each appeal takes approximately 6-9 months to process, potentially delaying projects a year or more that require a Director-level entitlement
From:
Takahashi, Tamala <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2025 1:32 PM
To: Hess, Justin <[email protected]>; Prescott, Patrick <[email protected]> Cc: Padgett, Courtney <[email protected]>
Subject: Questions for tomorrow night
Hi there,
I only have questions for the public hearing at this time. BTW, have had any communications yet regarding this item?
- which elements of the changes are to align with state law? - how do we plan on enforcing the requirement that the appelants only address the items in the appeal?
- with the mixed-use change from CUP to AUP, will there still be notices and still be an appeal?
- maybe an updated timeline of the steps of the appeal process, in visual, might be helpful?
Kindly,
Tamala Takahashi
Burbank Vice Mayor
818-238-5750 (phone)
Schedule a meeting here:
http://www.calendly.com/tamalatakahashi
Sign up for Burbank city council updates here:
https://burbankcouncil.substack.com/
Note: My work/online hours may not be yours. Please don't feel obligated to reply outside of your normal schedule or capacity.
From: Nathan Adair
To: City Council DL
Subject: Support for changes to appeal process
Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2025 8:30:14 AM
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Hi,
I just wanted to say that I support the proposed changes to the appeal process which city council is reviewing today. It has been my impression over the years that too many projects get slowed down through appeals for no real tangible reason. The strategy seems to be to make the project behind and costly enough that developers are discouraged from building in our city and I don’t appreciate that.
-Nathan