Civic Data Investigation · Oct. 28, 2026

Burbank by the Numbers: Six Findings from 2,100 Municipal Finance, Census & GIS Records

By cross-referencing 23 years of California State Controller fiscal filings with U.S. Census block-group socioeconomics and five newly extracted City of Burbank ArcGIS FeatureServer layers, a clear statistical portrait emerges of how money, shade, housing permits, transit infrastructure, and public land are distributed across the city.

Data as of Oct 28, 2026 from CA State Controller (ByTheNumbers) , City of Burbank ArcGIS Online , U.S. Census Bureau ACS and Burbank Ledger Open Data Catalog . Recomputed from official source records; see methodology.

1. The $765 Million City — and the $439 Million Pension Reversal

Two decades of audited municipal financial transactions submitted to the California State Controller’s Office (city-finance-sco) show that while Burbank’s population remained virtually flat — moving from 104,497 in FY 2003 to 106,146 in FY 2025 (+1.6%) — citywide municipal revenues expanded by +56.7%, rising from $488.17M ($4,672 per capita) to $765.18M ($7,209 per capita). Total municipal expenditures rose +65.3% over the same span, reaching $705.06M ($6,642 per resident).

Three structural shifts stand out in the State Controller’s line-item and historical ledger:

• Electric Utility Scale vs. Core Taxes: In FY 2025 (city-budget-items-sco), Burbank Water and Power’s Electric Enterprise generated $182.51M in commercial/industrial ($125.26M) and residential ($57.25M) electricity sales — roughly double the city’s combined Property Tax ($44.76M) and Sales & Use Tax ($44.22M) receipts.
• Public Safety Absorbs $114.45M: Combined operating expenditures for the Burbank Police Department ($76.04M) and Burbank Fire Department ($38.42M) reached $114.45M in FY 2025 — exceeding total property and sales tax collections combined.
• Hotel Tax Quadrupled & Recovered +141% Post-Pandemic: At a 10% rate, Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) receipts grew nearly fourfold from $3.42M in FY 2003 to a record $13.35M in FY 2025, rebounding +141.4% from the COVID-19 travel collapse of FY 2021 ($5.53M).
• From 103% Super-Funded to a $439.14M CalPERS Deficit: In FY 2003, Burbank’s CalPERS pension plans held $581.95M in market assets against $564.74M in actuarial liabilities — a 103.0% funded ratio with a $17.23M surplus. By FY 2024, accrued pension liabilities had more than tripled to $1.78B against $1.34B in assets, leaving an unfunded liability of $439.14M (75.4% funded, or $4,158 per resident).

2. The Shade & Rent Divide Across 76 Census Block Groups

Joining U.S. Census American Community Survey (ACS) block-group indicators with the City of Burbank’s urban tree canopy, impervious surface, and wildfire vulnerability GIS layers (neighborhood-stats-census) exposes a stark environmental and economic gradient between the Verdugo foothills and the flatland multifamily corridors.

Citywide across all 76 Census Block Groups (105,165 residents and 43,066 housing units), 41.6% of households (19,011 households) are housing cost-burdened, while average tree canopy coverage sits at just 14.28% against 70.28% impervious surface (asphalt, rooftops, and concrete).

• A 5.6× Tree Canopy Gap: The greenest residential block groups — Tract 3117.00 BG 5 (26.9% tree canopy, 58.2% impervious) and Tract 3114.00 BG 2 (26.6% canopy, 58.8% impervious) — report 0.0% poverty and below-average housing cost burden (25.7%–31.4%).
• Heat Islands Overlap with Rent Stress: In dense flatland block groups such as Tract 3107.03 BG 2 (2,262 residents), tree canopy drops to 4.8% while impervious pavement and roofs cover 88.4% of the land area — paired with 64.6% housing cost burden, 11.5% poverty, and a social vulnerability score of 24.
• Nearly 4 in 5 Households Cost-Burdened in Core Corridors: Two block groups — Tract 3107.04 BG 2 (1,709 residents, 79.9% cost-burdened) and Tract 3108.00 BG 1 (1,067 residents, 79.7% cost-burdened, only 6.0% tree canopy) — see nearly four out of every five households paying a disproportionate share of income toward housing.

3. The ADU Bottleneck & Planning Caseload Concentration

Community Development’s counter map and operational GIS layers (planning-adu-arcgis) track 338 Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) applications alongside 255 active discretionary planning projects.

• 73.1% Still Logged as “Currently Under Review”: Of the 338 ADU applications in the GIS layer, 247 (73.1%) carry the status Currently Under Review, while 91 (26.9%) are marked Approved.
• 99.4% Outside the R-1-H Hillside Zone: Despite recurring policy debates over hillside fire Evacuation and accessory housing, 336 of the 338 ADU filings (99.4%) are on flatland parcels outside the R-1-H single-family hillside zone (with the remaining 2 records having blank hillside flags and zero confirmed R-1-H applications).
• Planner Caseload Concentration: Across the 255 active Planning Projects, three planners handle more than half (51.8%) of the entire active entitlement log: Scott Plambaeck (90 projects, 35.3%), Xavier Thomas (22 projects, 8.6%), and Eduardo Rendon (20 projects, 7.8%).

4. Transit Ridership: 10 Stops Carry 34% of Boardings — and Ad Vendors Control the Busiest Shelters

The City of Burbank’s bus stop ridership and shelter inventory layer (transit-ridership-arcgis) covers 285 transit stops totaling 77,183 boardings.

• Extreme Corridor Concentration: The top 10 bus stops alone (just 3.5% of stops) account for 26,267 boardings — 34.0% of all transit ridership in Burbank. Burbank Metrolink Station Bay 5 (MT-30003-206) leads the city with 5,009 boardings across six Metro lines (96, 154, 155, 164, 165, 294), followed by Olive Ave & San Fernando Blvd (MT-1574-153, 3,519 boardings) and 1st St & Magnolia Blvd (MT-11812-106, 2,979 boardings).
• Advertising-Vendor Shelters Serve Half of All Riders: While the City of Burbank directly owns the largest number of bus shelters (155 stops, 54.4%), private outdoor advertising contractor Outfront Media operates the 76 highest-volume stops (26.7% of stops) that capture 38,518 boardings — 49.9% of all transit riders citywide (averaging 507 boardings per stop vs. 194 boardings per stop at municipal shelters and 166 boardings per stop across 52 Clear Channel stops). Read our full investigation into Outfront Media’s 76 Burbank shelters and 10 zero-ridership “ghost” stops →

5. The Municipal Land Bank vs. 125 Housing Opportunity Sites

Cross-examining the city’s municipal land ownership polygon layer with its Housing Element Opportunity Sites inventory (city-owned-opportunity-parcels) highlights the scale of publicly held land relative to state-mandated housing capacity sites:

• 385 City-Owned Parcels (4,985.5 Acres): The City of Burbank holds 385 parcels totaling 4,985.5 acres — led by large Verdugo Mountain open-space tracts (552.3 acres at 1500 E. Walnut Ave / Wildwood & Stough Canyon, plus 251.3-acre airport-adjacent tracts) alongside Downtown parking structures, parks, and BWP utility yards totaling 452,960 sq. ft. of municipal building floor area and $90.00M in recorded base value.
• 125 Housing Element Opportunity Sites (96.6 Acres): To meet California’s 6th Cycle Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), Burbank designated 125 opportunity parcels spanning 96.6 acres (4.21 million sq. ft.), including 8 Transit-Oriented Development (TOD / DTTOD) sites (4.9 acres) and 117 commercial corridor parcels (91.7 acres).

6. Developer-Funded Public Art & Industrial Stormwater Sweeps

Two additional municipal GIS layers round out the physical audit of the city:

• Downtown & Media District Capture 40% of Public Art (parks-public-art-arcgis): Alongside 27 municipal parks and recreation centers, Burbank’s Arts in Public Places inventory catalogs 139 sculptures, murals, and fountains funded through the city’s 1% development art fee and municipal installations. Because the program tracks commercial construction, installations cluster heavily in Downtown (32 works), the Media District (24 works), and the Airport District (19 works), while neighborhood commercial strips like Magnolia Park have just 6 cataloged works.
• Stormwater Enforcement Concentrated in Industrial Corridors (stormwater-discharges-arcgis): Public Works’ environmental compliance GIS log records 104 enforcement cases — 97 illicit discharges and 7 illicit connections — with 93.3% (97 cases) logged during the city’s FY 2014–2015 MS4 permit inspection sweep along industrial corridors including Empire Ave, Winona Ave, Reese Pl, Bob Hope Dr, and San Fernando Blvd.

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