After years of everyone saying "something must be done somewhere else" SB79 was just signed into law, taking zoning control out of the hands of local cities.
Magnolia Park and the Studio District along Olive Avenue south of the 5 freeway and north of the 134 freeway would be served by four tier 2 transit stops. (There would be one additional stop near Warner Bros. below the 134 and one additional stop near downtown Burbank above the 5.)
The tier 2 designation comes from the type of transit (bus rapid transit or quality of rail service) and the number of stops per day. Clustering is considered, so while the two train stations at the Hollywood Burbank airport don't qualify individually, they qualify together as tier 2. If HSR ever gets built, the airport would become tier 1. Of course, it's problematic building around the airport for noise and heigh restrictions, though we're seeing places like the former Frys property give it a go.
Tier 2 allows for housing of up to 65 feet (5-6 stories) within 1/2 mile of stations and up to 55 feet (about 4-5 stories) in the next quarter mile.
Four story example (Ventura)
Six story example (San Pedro)
Of course, this doesn't mean there's automatically going to be a massive build-out to the fully allowed, but it could also mean more ADUs and more secret four-plexes. (If you walk along Keystone south of the high school and look carefully, a number of the houses have fourplexes hidden behind them. You won't see them from the street, but they help add places to live. And more places to live means lower housing costs.
And considering Burbank has a night-time population of 100k and a daytime population of over 200k, more people living here and working here would mean less traffic. Of course, the idea is more housing near these mass transit also implies people might live here and work elsewhere.
We've also heard the Burbank School District lament a lack of students (due to Burbank's high housing costs) and lack of funding (due to prop 13 discouraging downsizing and discouraging selling). New zoning and new housing might have a positive impact on that.
As a Magnolia Park Burbank homeowner, obviously I wanted to know if my neighbors to either side are going to sell to developers. Glendale has done this poorly in the past, you'll find neighborhoods with apartments intermixed with houses in such a way that the remaining houses will never sell for much (too small to build an apartment, trapped forever between apartments). I hope Burbank does better. It does end up looking like my house is "safe" from upzoning, but if the new apartments are cool and maybe have retail or studio-support ground floor uses, we could see more businesses, more jobs and maybe more things open past 9-stinking-30 at night. Of course, I'd also like to see Magnolia upzoned. If they allowed for 2-3 story buildings with apartments above retail, it would be much more lively and more reason for businesses to be open longer and the existing 3-story buildings on Magnolia prove it doesn't hurt the surrounding neighborhoods.
Anyhow, here's my map of the impacts to Magnolia park of SB79. I used the L.A. City map because they had all the circles already which was helpful and the Metro video for the station locations.
