Thomas Tunnicliffe

The Burbank City Council has awarded $1.5 million to a developer who charged in a lawsuit that the city illegally backed out of a complex deal to assist him in building an office-retail building. The decision Tuesday night to pay the settlement marked the conclusion of more than a year of bitter wrangling between the council and developer Thomas Tunnicliffe. It also appeared to heighten already tense relations between Councilman Tim Murphy and his colleagues.

The Burbank City Council has awarded $1.5 million to a developer who charged in a lawsuit that the city illegally backed out of a complex deal to assist him in building an office-retail building. The decision Tuesday night to pay the settlement marked the conclusion of more than a year of bitter wrangling between the council and developer Thomas Tunnicliffe. It also appeared to heighten already tense relations between Councilman Tim Murphy and his colleagues.

Burbank City Manager Bud Ovrom said Tuesday that he will seek to terminate his financial tie to developer Thomas Tunnicliffe to avoid the appearence of a conflict of interest. Ovrom said he made the decision after disclosures that he had accepted a $120,000 loan last April from Tunnicliffe to help him finance a residential lot where he wanted to build a home. Since the loan, Ovrom has abstained from decisions involving projects by Tunnicliffe.

The Burbank City Council, acting as the city's Redevelopment Agency, voted to sell former school property that at one time was to have been the site of a shopping mall. City officials said they recently received several requests for the lease or purchase of the property at 2706 Thornton Ave., in downtown Burbank, occupied by what used to be the Ben Franklin Elementary School. The school has been closed for several years. The proposed Towncenter shopping mall was to have been built on the 4.

The Burbank City Council has turned down a developer's request to build a residential project for senior citizens, even though it acknowledged that there is a need for such low-cost housing in the city. The council voted 4 to 0 Tuesday night to deny developer Thomas Tunnicliffe's request to build the 3-story, 349-room project. Council members said the project would be incompatible with the surrounding area, which is mostly industrial.

The Burbank City Council on Tuesday approved the development of a $10-million retail shopping and senior-citizen housing project on the city's Golden Mall and an $11-million office and restaurant project that officials said would be a "prominent gateway" into downtown Burbank. The gateway project will be built on city redevelopment property at the northeast corner of First Street and Olive Avenue by the Cusumano Brothers Partnership, city officials said.

Burbank developer Thomas Tunnicliffe said Thursday that he is proceeding with plans to build a $10-million, four-story retail and senior-citizen project on the city's Golden Mall. Tunnicliffe said that, although the Burbank City Council has yet to give the project final approval, he believes that it will do so next month. The council, acting as the city's redevelopment agency, gave the project preliminary approval Tuesday.

The Burbank City Council on Tuesday asked that an ordinance be drawn up to require future developers of commercial property to provide larger parking areas for employees and clients. Such an ordinance, which would require developers to provide more parking than is now called for in the city's municipal code, would head off worsening parking problems in Burbank, council members said.

It will still look like a mountain hunting lodge from the outside, but inside it will be completely different. "It" is Hume's Sporting Goods Co., which has been a Burbank landmark for outdoorsmen since shortly after World War II at 140 N. Victory Blvd. Mrs. Dabny Hume, widow of the founder, Alex R. Hume, has sold the property to 140 Victory Boulevard Associates, whose general partners are Thomas M. Tunnicliffe and Gerald Hungerford. According to Thomas Realty Co. Inc.

With the election of Tim Murphy, the Burbank City Council will be controlled by members who favor slowing development, city officials and developers said Wednesday. However, the same people disagreed on whether the slow-growth majority will establish new city policy on development. "This city is almost as slow as it can get in terms of growth," said Chuck Cusumano, a Burbank developer. "There have been so many restrictions put in during the last three years, on parking and on how much you can put on property, that there's not a lot more they can do."

A Burbank homeowners group has asked the City Council to remove Planning Board Chairman Jim Wagner for an alleged conflict of interest in his solicitation of support for a proposed development project involving his employer, developer Thomas Tunnicliffe.