Local business and civic organizations with ties to the Glendale border areas may wish to keep abreast of “developments.” The NELA redevelopment team’s newsletter is on Google Docs; NELA is also on Facebook.

Steering committee composition, and the application (due February 11) are available from this link.

In Atwater, T-Mobile applied to install a cell site on top of apartments across the street from Atwater Elementary School. Shortly after resident Susan Becker contacted GOACT, Eric Garcetti’s office, city planning, the LAUSD (which has passed a resolution banning cell sites on school district properties), and school administrators, she learned that T-Mobile had withdrawn its application. Becker attended Saturday’s session on utility pole sitings and believes that T-Mobile will take a less visible route, like working through the Joint Pole Committee, to site a facility in the neighborhood without any public notice.

The Leader covered residents’ objections to a proposed T-Mobile tower at Brace Canyon. A subsequent Leader editorial praised Glendale’s approach to the situation. The matter goes before the Burbank City Council tonight.

In West Covina, a parent whose child attends a church/elementary school that turned down a request to enter into a lease agreement learned that its next door neighbor, another house of worship, had agreed to a lease which would place a cell site adjacent to her child’s school. The matter will be up for discussion at a West Covina Planning Commission meeting tonight as well.

According to an email Sunroom Desk received from LaBonge’s office:

…the Mayor and City Council have committed to build a new Alternative Technology Site within each of the city’s six solid wastesheds, and each council member was asked to identify a potential site in his/her council district to be studied by the Bureau of Sanitation for this purpose. Councilman LaBonge suggested the River Glen area of Atwater, near the Levitz site but not necessarily the existing building. The Bureau of Sanitation is currently conducting an analysis of this and other sites around the City and will report their findings and feasibility recommendations to the Council members.

City council candidate Lenore Solis has warned that the facility is being planned with the Levitz property as a short-listed site, and that hundreds of trucks could be driving refuse loads daily to the North Atwater/Glendale border. Solis brought the issue to the February 17, 2009 Glendale city council meeting during oral communications. Following her comments, both Public Works Director Stephen Zurn and City Manager Jim Starbird replied in response to Mayor John Drayman’s inquiry that Los Angeles had no proposals on the table, and that the city of Glendale is on record as strongly opposing such a site (link here to the video archive of the meeting; Solis’ comments begin at 3 hours, 2 minutes into the meeting, followed by the responses of Zurn and Starbird.)

Solis also brought up the issue at the March 2, 2009 Glendale Homeowners’ Coordinating Council meeting. Pelanconi Estate Homeowners Association President Patrick Masihi differed with Solis, cited the inputs from Zurn and Starbird, and stated that the city of Los Angeles has no published plans or proposals for such a facility.

The city of Los Angeles has conducted a three-year round of workshops throughout its districts on the subject of future solid waste disposal options. The next workshop scheduled for the North-Central district (which includes Atwater) is next Tuesday, March 24, 6 p.m., and the Los Angeles Citywide Zero Waste Conference is Saturday, May 30, 2009, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Locations and other information are published on this meeting announcement.

The Triangle Project, a five-story, 218-unit complex with 54,000 feet of ground floor retail space, is “expected to generate a one-time payment of $760,000 to the city for park development and an additional $210,000 in annual revenue for parks and libraries within the San Fernando Road redevelopment zone,” according to today’s Glendale News Press cover story. The developer will also be paying the city $3.2 million in lieu of providing affordable housing in the project.

The $3.2 million is a good deal, especially since 218 units added to Glendale’s apartment inventory will exert downward pressure on rents anyway! New condos built on the east side of Brand Blvd. and new condo developments in surrounding cities are being converted to apartments due to the real estate crash. Rent-control advocates should be pleased.

The city is fortunate to have a revenue-boosting construction project like this going forward at such a difficult time. However, the beneficial gain in construction jobs is temporary, and the projection for a large number of new retail jobs is questionable. Who is opening new retail establishments right now? Retail sales are likely to shrink as a proportion of our local, state, and national economy for quite some time. The city can’t count on sales tax revenues just because new space is being built. Empty ground floor spaces have the potential to blight the area.

Also offsetting the clear gains to the city is the increased traffic congestion in the Glendale/Atwater area. Flat, spacious, single-level commercial lots with ample parking are grandfathered traffic and parking relief valves for our era. Each one lost frustrates those already doing business in the area.