City to Hear New Glenmore Plan : Development: The builder’s third proposal includes reducing the hillside lots from 46 to 40.

GLENDALE —  The developer of a proposed hillside subdivision in Glenmore Canyon has submitted a third plan that company officials say answers many of the objections to the prior plans and more closely follows pending guidelines for building in the mountains.

The City Council was informed of the new plan Tuesday when Homes by Polygon of Laguna Niguel requested postponement of a hearing on its proposal to develop 28.8 acres west of the Glendale Freeway (2) at Mountain Street. The council rescheduled the hearing to Jan. 26.

Details of the new proposal, submitted to planning officials two weeks ago, are not yet available.

However, Marlene Roth, a consultant to the developer, said the latest proposal calls for building a total of 40 lots, a modest reduction from 46 in the most recent plan. Thirty-six lots would be on top of a horseshoe-shaped ridge and four more below on a cul-de-sac at the end of Glenmore Boulevard. Access to homes on top of the ridge would be gated.

Roth said the new plan calls for less grading on a ridge line and proposes that homes be set back from the rim of the mountain to reduce their visibility from the community below. Lots would be contoured to the shape of the hillside, rather than flat--a key issue in proposed new guidelines that the city is preparing to adopt after years of study. Hearings on the guidelines are expected to begin in January.

Initial plans for the site, submitted more than three years ago, proposed cutting off the top of the ridge to fill in a canyon to build as many as 61 luxury home sites. In the wake of widespread opposition, an alternative was submitted last August just before scheduled public hearings. It modified the grading and scaled back the development to a maximum of 46 home sites.

But opponents continued to object, charging that the project would ruin the quiet of their neighborhoods, cause traffic congestion and overcrowding in schools, and create ugly scars on ridges surrounding canyon neighborhoods. Some have argued that no development should be permitted on the site because all of the wildlife and vegetation was destroyed in the disastrous June, 1990, College Hills brush fire that also burned 64 hillside homes nearby.

Roth and other representatives of the developer have met repeatedly in the past few months with homeowners and city officials in attempts to overcome opposition. Roth told council members Tuesday that the latest plan “doesn’t answer everybody’s prayers, believe me, but it is a more sensitive plan.”

Developers last month asked the city Planning Commission to postpone a hearing on the two earlier proposals until new plans could be submitted. The proposal still requires analysis by the planning department and a hearing before the Environmental and Planning Board before its scheduled hearing by the Planning Commission Jan. 11.

Rob Sharkey, a spokesman for the Glenmore Canyon Homeowners Assn., told council members Tuesday that residents have become frustrated by repeated changes in the proposed project by the developer. However, Roth said her group is attempting to be sensitive to homeowner complaints.

Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg on Tuesday said she is concerned that delays in hearing the proposal could turn the project into a campaign issue in next April’s City Council elections.

“I don’t want this to be a part of the silly season,” said Bremberg, who is expected to seek reelection along with Councilman Dick Jutras.

A special public hearing on the Polygon proposal is tentatively set before the City Council at 6 p.m. Jan. 26 in the Council Chambers in City Hall, 613 E. Broadway.