By Brian CHERNICK

Tuesday’s Glendale City Council meeting began with a proclamation designating May as Historic Preservation Month. Mayor Vartan Gharpetian delivered the proclamation stressing the importance of honoring and maintaining the tangible heritage of Glendale.

The Glendale Historic Society executive director Sean Bersell thanked the mayor and council members for their continued commitment to Glendale’s architectural heritage.

“Preservation is really about the future, not the past,” Bersell said. “Preservation is about maintaining those resources that give our community its character.”

Previously the council had designated a number of homes and entire communities as landmarks and historic districts. The council’s decision to fully restore the Rockhaven Sanitarium late last year marked a significant victory for the Glendale Historical Society.

Additionally, the council voted to ease the city’s water conservation ordinance from Phase II to Phase I following the recommendation from the Glendale Water and Power (GWP). GWP Director Steven Zurn stated that, despite estimates that water consumption levels would exceed 2016 numbers, the estimate comes far lower than 2013 when California faced the peak of the recent drought. Phase I of the city’s water conservation ordinance lifts restrictions previously enforced under Phase II, which prohibited the watering of lawns on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Phase I continues to prohibit watering between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. amid other wasteful water practices that are outlined in Gov. Jerry Brown’s executive order B-40-17 that ended California’s drought state of emergency.

The council also approved the construction of a new parking structure after holding a hearing with Community Development Planner Kathy Duarte to discuss and field residents’ questions and concerns regarding the project.

The structure is to replace the current surface parking lot on the southwest corner of Adams and Colorado and comes at the request of the Community Development Dept. to offset the impending loss of public parking spaces at the World Gym, which is set for demolition, and the site will then have a 134-room hotel built upon it.

Duarte and the department requested that council approve the area to be rezoned from residential and commercial and split to a strictly C3-1 commercial zone after it received an application from the adjacent banquet hall property owner who previously leased the parking places at the World Gym.

  Brian CHERNICK