Downtown could account for more than 90 percent of new housing across the city as officials try to transform the area into a high-rise residential corridor.
But those plans come with concern — a lack of affordable housing, a spike in traffic and a real-estate slump that has developers nervous.
“Right now, it just feels like we’re so darn close to gridlock here that I hope somebody’s thinking, just planning ahead,” said Rev. Craig Hall of Glendale Presbyterian Church, a downtown mainstay for 85 years.
About a dozen downtown Glendale projects are either under construction or being planned. They include everything from the massive Americana at Brand outdoor mall, which opens in the spring, to a 12-story hotel under construction just north of the Ventura Freeway.
Most include apartments or condos.
But none of them offers affordable units for low-income residents. In areas designated as redevelopment zones, the state requires developers to set aside some of their units and sell them at reduced prices for low- and moderate-income buyers.
But downtown Glendale was established as a redevelopment zone in 1972, four years before the state requirement went into effect. So developers are not required to create any affordable housing.
That doesn’t sit well with Paul Zimmerman, executive director of the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing.
“The people of Glendale are missing out on a tremendous opportunity to provide housing that’s affordable for most of the people in the city of Glendale,” Zimmerman said.
Glendale has a low-income housing program for the more industrial area around San Fernando Road and other neighborhoods throughout the city, but not for downtown. And Mayor Ara Najarian said that’s how developers want it.
“That would not go over very well because I think the developers would just be very, very opposed to that,” he said. “We’re having a hard time getting them to pay a couple thousand per unit for our parks.”
And it’s not as if there is a lot of room for those parks.
City officials say there’s no space to build them unless they pay top dollar for land where rents and property values are expensive.
The City Council recently voted to charge developers $2,000 per housing unit to fund the expansion of parks and libraries. Any new project being proposed after Dec. 1 would pay $3,500 per unit.
Without parks, developers have gotten creative with what they build and how they build it.
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At the proposed 24-story Verdugo Gardens, the developer plans to give residents a little open space to unwind within the project.
Five “sky gardens” would be built into the face of the building, giving residents a place to relax in gardens high in the air and each have a different theme, using elements of forests or colors associated with the sunset.