1 STAFF REPORT
DATE: July 15, 2025
TO: Justin Hess, City Manager
FROM: Patrick Prescott, Community Development Director Via: David Kriske, Assistant Community Development Director Fred Ramirez, Assistant Community Development Director
By: Alyssa Meredith, Senior Administrative Analyst
SUBJECT: Approval to Amend the Fiscal Year 2025 -26 Adopted Budget and Appropriate General Plan Maintenance Funds for Consultant Services to Update and Apply the City’s Travel Demand Forecast Model t o Analyze Growth Assumptions for the Proposed Downtown Burbank Transit Oriented Development, Golden State, and Media District Specific Plans
RECOMMENDATION
Amend the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025-26 Budget to Appropriate General Plan Maintenance Funds in the Amount of $72,500 to Update and Apply the City’s Travel Demand Forecast (TDF) Model to Projected Growth Assumptions for the Downtown Burbank Transit Oriented Development (TOD), Golden State and Media District Specific Plans.
BACKGROUND
On June 24, 2025, City planning staff provided the City Council with an update on the status of current work underway to develop four specific plans: Downtown Burbank TOD, Golden State District, Media District, and the Rancho Neighborhood Specific Plans. Currently, the City is preparing highly technical and coordinated infrastructure analysis that is not typical of a single specific plan. The detailed and complex work will help the City plan for future infrastructure needs, which includes analysis of potential transportation environmental impacts related to Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT) and effects on roadway vehicle congestion Level of Service (LOS).
COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT
2 DISCUSSION
Staff is requesting that the City Council approve an amendment to the FY 2025 -26 Adopted Budget to appropriate General Plan Maintenance Funds to onboard Fehr & Peers (Consultant) to update the land use assumptions included in the City’s TDF Model.
Updating these TDF Model assumptions is needed to incorporate newer project alternatives and growth assumptions currently being analyzed as part of the City’s development of the Downtown Burbank TOD, Golden State, and Media District Specific Plans and associated Environmental Impact Reports.
The additional transportation modeling work will update the TDF to include growth assumptions for each specific plan and will then calculate the resulting changes in VMT associated with each proposed specific plan, which are necessary for each plan’s environmental analysis. This work is complex because the transportation analysis for each plan must account for the expected changes caused by the other two plans happening in the background. Staff wants to ensure that the environmental effects of each specific plan are considered in concert with the environmental effects of the other two plans so that the City is disclosing any potential cumulative effects of all three plans occurring. This a dditional work was not anticipated in the original scope of work for creating each specific plan because the analysis of each plan has resulted in staff recommending changes to growth assumptions for the plans, which requires updated transportation analysis.
Similarly, this modeling work will also update forecasts for roadway intersection congestion that is expected to be generated by all three specific plan changes. For each specific plan, staff has identified a list of major intersections that are analyzed to provide information on how roadway congestion changes due to land use changes. This analysis also accounts for changes to regional transportation systems ( such as changes to Metrolink service and Bus Rapid Transit) as well as roadway configuration changes that are being proposed in the specific plans to improve active transportation networks but that nonetheless could impact roadway congestion. Congestion levels are no longer considered environmental impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act , but land use and mobility goals and policies related to roadway performance remain in the Burbank2035 General Plan. As previously indicated, this additional work was not anticipated in the original scope of work for creating each specific plan due to changes in growth assumptions.
Finally, t his modeling will support the City’s compliance with state -mandated transportation impact metrics while also providing a foundation for understanding and mitigating impacts from future development. It will also help s taff create tools for each specific plan that will allow transportation analysis of future development projects consistent with each plan to be streamlined.
3 The proposed budget amendment to allocate General Plan Maintenance Funds in the amount of $72,500 will cover one half the cost of the necessary transportation modeling work. The remaining cost will be funded by Transportation Development Impact Fees, which have been previously budgeted to complete transportation modeling needed for the specific plans . Transportation Development Impact Fees are assessed on new development to pay for transportation improvements needed to address the impacts of the development.
City Council approval of this budget request will enable the necessary technical analysis to proceed, ensuring that the transportation impacts of future development are adequately addressed. This work is essential to City staff’s ongoing efforts to complete the Downtown Burbank TOD, Golden State, and Media District Specific Plans by Summer 2026.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The proposed budget amendment request and resultant TDF Model work has been reviewed for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Staff recommends that the City Council find the budget amendment request and resulting TDF Model work is exempt from review under the CEQA (Public Resources Code § 21000 et seq,) pursuant to § 15306 of the CEQA Guidelines in which the project has no potential for causing a significant effect on the environment as it is focused data collection, research, analysis, and implementation of the TDF Model. No unusual circumstances exist that would preclude the use of this exemption. Furthermore, pursuant to CEQA Guidelines § 15378, this budget amendment is not considered a “project” subject to the requirements of CEQA because the budget amendment request and TDF Model work has no potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment.
FISCAL IMPACT
Staff is requesting City Council authority to amend the FY 2025- 26 Adopted Budget by appropriating $72,500 from account number 001.ND000.41005.1006.000000 (General Fund. Non-Departmental. Building Permits. General Plan Fee) to expenditure account number 001.CD31A.62185.0000.000000 (General Fund. Planning. Transportation Element Environmental Impact Report).
CONCLUSION
Staff recommends that the City Council approve amending the FY 2025-26 Adopted Budget for a total of $72,500 , appropriating General Plan Maintenance Funds for consultant services needed to update and apply the City’s TDF Model to projected growth assumptions for the Downtown Burbank TOD, Golden State and Media District Specific Plans.
ATTACHMENT
None.