Tag: housing

  • Design Commission meeting

    Dear Chair Delgado and Members of the Design Commission,

    I want to begin by thanking the Commission for speaking so candidly about the quality of some of the developments coming before you. I’ve been encouraged by your willingness to question designs that don’t seem to reflect the architectural standards Pasadena has long been known for. I realize state housing laws have made your job much harder, but I hope you’ll keep pushing for better projects.

    This project isn’t in my neighborhood, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t care. It could just as easily be my neighborhood someday. I feel for the people who live directly behind this property, who may soon have an 85-foot building overlooking their homes, along with more traffic and potentially more cars competing for street parking. If this were happening next to my home, I would hope other Pasadena residents would speak up, too. I think we owe that to one another.

    I’m also here because I’m increasingly concerned about the city we’re building. We all love Pasadena, but I think many of us are looking at what’s being proposed and wondering what happened to the plans and standards that were supposed to guide development in our city. I was encouraged to hear Mayor Gordo raise similar concerns at the Housing, Homelessness and Planning Committee meeting last night. State housing laws have taken away much of Pasadena’s ability to make its own decisions, and that needs to change. But in the meantime, I don’t want us to give up good design, tree protection, open space, or consideration for the people who already live in these neighborhoods and those who will eventually call these new buildings home.

    Looking at the proposed development at 1946–1976 East Colorado Boulevard, I have several concerns about what we’re giving up to accommodate it.

    The proposal calls for a six-story building reaching approximately 85 feet, with 154 apartments and 77 parking spaces. It also requests five concessions and five waivers from our development standards. Most troubling to me is the reduction in common open space from the normally required 37,775 square feet to just 7,922 square feet, with no publicly accessible open space proposed. That’s nearly an 80 percent reduction in common open space. With so many apartments, including two- and three-bedroom units, I wonder whether we’re providing enough outdoor space for the families and children who will live here.

    And then there are the trees. The project proposes removing 12 trees, including 11 protected trees. I appreciate that the design has been adjusted to preserve a sycamore along Greenwood Avenue, but could similar changes save more of the other trees? My concern is that by the time the tree removal requests come before the city, the building’s design will already be too far along to make meaningful changes. Shouldn’t we be looking at ways to preserve these trees now? I’d also appreciate a complete, updated tree inventory showing exactly which trees are proposed for removal, their species, size, condition, and location. The planning materials appear to contain different tree counts, and I’d like to understand why. I’ve also become increasingly concerned about our reliance on trees planted in concrete pots. I’ve seen too many around Pasadena where the trees have died, and the planters have remained empty for years. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed. These are not substitutes for mature trees growing in the ground. I hope the Commission will consider how much room there will actually be for healthy trees to grow.

    I’m also concerned about how this building will affect the smaller residential properties directly behind it. The staff report describes how the building steps down toward the residential neighborhood, but I’d like the Commission to look closely at whether those changes go far enough. An 85-foot building next to much smaller residential buildings is a substantial change. What about the privacy, sunlight, and quality of life of the neighbors who will live next to it? I hope we’ll do everything possible to make that transition less severe.

    I spent some time looking at other Meta Housing developments. I was particularly impressed by Citrus Crossing in Glendale, which won a 2025 Gold Nugget Grand Award for affordable senior housing. What caught my attention was the difference in the design. Citrus Crossing incorporates brick, wood siding, and stucco, along with a landscaped courtyard, a pedestrian paseo, and rooftop decks where residents can gather, garden, and spend time outdoors. Now compare that with what’s being proposed here. We have a six-story building with an exterior that’s largely one color of stucco, a substantial reduction in common open space, and 11 protected trees proposed for removal. I appreciate that the Pasadena proposal includes courtyards and a children’s play area, but I wonder why we can’t do more. I realize Citrus Crossing serves a different population and was designed by a different architect. But Meta Housing has already shown what it can accomplish. I hope we can reach that same level of quality with this project, especially given its location along historic Route 66. I’d love to see Meta Housing build something in Pasadena that receives the same kind of architectural recognition. I was pleased to see that planning staff recommends reconsidering Scheme 1 instead of continuing with the proposed Scheme 3. If staff believes an earlier design better reflects Pasadena’s Objective Design Standards, I hope the Commission will encourage the developer to explore it further.

    I’m also worried about what is happening along East Colorado Boulevard as a whole. We have several large housing projects proposed along this stretch of historic Route 66. Pasadena’s East Colorado Specific Plan calls for architectural diversity, well-designed façades, meaningful open space, and development that strengthens Colorado Boulevard as our historic main street. I’d hate to see buildings going up that could just as easily be anywhere else.

    With 154 apartments and only 77 parking spaces, I am especially interested in what the transportation analysis tells us about the surrounding neighborhood. I’ve spent a great deal of time reviewing Pasadena’s Transportation Impact Analysis Guidelines, and I think the document contains a lot of useful information. It should help us understand not only how this project affects nearby residential streets, but also what changes we could make to the building’s design to reduce those impacts. With the proposed driveway on Berkeley Avenue, have we considered how vehicles entering and leaving the property will affect that street and the residential neighborhood behind the development? Could the driveway be better located? Could circulation be improved? Are we considering the other developments coming to East Colorado and what their combined impacts will be? And are we looking at the possibility of additional parking demand on nearby residential streets? I’d like to see the applicable transportation findings shared and used to make this project better for the people who will live there and the neighbors who are already there. Our transportation studies should be helping us solve problems while there is still time to change the design.

    I know this is only a preliminary review, but I worry that once these plans get further along, we’ll be told it’s too late to make changes. That’s why I’m writing now. I hope the Commission will take a hard look at what’s being proposed and ask the developer to do better where improvements are possible. I’d hate to see us miss that opportunity.

    I hope you’ll pay particular attention to the amount and quality of open space, preservation of the existing trees, the transition to the residential neighborhood, and whether the architecture can better reflect its location along historic Route 66.

    Whatever gets built on this property will be here for generations. I want the people who live there to have a well-designed building with adequate outdoor space, and I want to treat existing neighbors fairly. I also want to be proud of the city we’re building. Pasadena has a remarkable architectural history, and I don’t want us to lose sight of that just because state laws have made development more difficult to manage.

    We don’t just need more housing. We need to build homes worth living in.

    Thank you for your consideration.

  • What happens when you show up…

    Pasadena Now quoted me in its piece on the East Colorado Housing Project. Read it here.

    And in a piece about state-imposed density.

  • October 14 Housing, Homelessness and Planning Committee meeting (part 2)

    Agenda Item 2: Update on Major Housing Projects Currently Under Review

    Dear Mayor Gordo and Committee Members,

    As you receive an update on Pasadena’s major housing projects, I hope you will look beyond the number of units moving through the development process and consider what all this growth is going to mean for our city.

    The materials accompanying this meeting identify 23 major housing projects totaling 4,160 units, either submitted for review or under construction. That’s a substantial amount of development, and I wonder whether Pasadena is growing faster than our ability to plan for it.

    I’ve lived in Pasadena for nearly 30 years and raised my three children here. For more than a decade, I’ve followed our planning decisions, attended meetings, read reports and raised concerns about the direction our city is heading. And I have to tell you, I’m increasingly troubled by what I’m seeing.

    Pasadena didn’t become the city we love by accident. Generations of residents have worked hard to protect its architecture, neighborhoods, mature trees and character. We have spent decades establishing standards that have made Pasadena a desirable place to live. Are those standards still being upheld as we accommodate more development?

    Are our streets ready for thousands of additional residents? Do we have the infrastructure to support this growth? Where will the additional parks and open spaces be? Are we protecting the mature trees that make our neighborhoods special? And are we looking at the combined effects of these developments rather than evaluating each project in isolation?

    These are not new questions. Many residents have been asking them for years, and I believe they deserve more than assurances that everything will work out.

    Somewhere along the way, we seem to have started measuring success by the number of housing units being produced rather than the quality of the city we’re creating. I think it’s time to bring some common sense back into the discussion of growth.

    I’m not suggesting Pasadena shouldn’t grow. But growth must be accompanied by responsible planning, and I want to know who at City Hall is taking responsibility for the bigger picture.

    I ask this committee to request that future housing updates address more than the development pipeline. Show residents whether our streets, parks and infrastructure can accommodate the anticipated growth. Explain how Pasadena’s development standards are being maintained, what deficiencies have been identified and what the City intends to do about them. We should also be measuring whether the commitments made during project approvals are being fulfilled after construction.

    Perhaps the most important question is this: When we look back ten years from now, will we be proud of what we’ve allowed to be built? Or will we wonder why we didn’t ask harder questions when we still had the opportunity?

    We need to get back to what has always made Pasadena special. I don’t want to see decades of careful planning and preservation lost because we failed to consider the consequences of our decisions.

    We have worked too hard to protect this city to simply watch those qualities disappear. Growth is inevitable, but losing what makes Pasadena a wonderful place to live should not be.

  • October 14 Housing, Homelessness and Planning Committee meeting

    Agenda Item 1: Density Bonuses, Concessions and Waivers

    Dear Mayor Gordo and Members of the Housing, Homelessness and Planning Committee,

    I recently wrote an op-ed titled “Pasadena Did Not Arrive Here Without Warning” following the August 25 Design Commission meeting. I was stunned by what I heard that evening. Our own commissioners questioned whether some of the housing proposed in Pasadena would provide a reasonable quality of life for the people who will live in it. They raised concerns about extremely small apartments, limited sunlight, inadequate open space, trees, and parking. Commissioner Marie-Claude Fares described apartments with living room and bedroom windows facing a blank wall just nine feet away. Chair Julianna Delgado asked a question that has stayed with me: “What kind of housing is it—just cramming people into little boxes or giving them a good life?”

    I have been raising these concerns, along with many other Pasadena residents, for more than a decade. We questioned what would happen if Pasadena continued increasing density without equally serious planning for parks, trees, open space, transportation, parking, and infrastructure. Too often, those concerns were dismissed as opposition to housing. Hearing our own Design Commission now raise many of the same issues was both encouraging and frustrating. For years, Pasadena seemed so focused on how many additional housing units it could zone for that we lost sight of an equally important question: Where would all these people actually enjoy living? Where would their children play? Where would families gather outdoors? Where were the parks, trees, open spaces and shaded streets that make a neighborhood a desirable place to live? We spent years planning for the number of units, but did we put the same effort into planning for the lives people would lead once those units were built?

    Your October 14 staff report acknowledges that the most common requests for density-bonus concessions and waivers involve floor area, setbacks, open space, and building height. These are not insignificant details. They affect how much sunlight reaches apartments, the space available for healthy trees to grow, the outdoor areas residents can enjoy, and the relationship between new developments and surrounding neighborhoods. Pasadena has long taken pride in its beautiful, mature tree canopy. Yet we increasingly see developments where trees are squeezed into concrete planters because buildings and pavement take up so much of the property. Drive around Pasadena, and you’ll see empty planters where trees and plants have died and never been replaced. I have also noticed this happening with newly planted street trees, including at the development on the corner of Del Mar and Los Robles and, more recently, at the new Caltech project on California Boulevard.

    What concerns me is the lack of apparent follow-up after these projects are completed. Does staff routinely revisit developments to confirm that required landscaping and street trees are surviving? When a tree dies, who is responsible for making sure it is replaced? Residents should not have to drive around, identify dead trees, and report them to the City. Staff should be conducting regular follow-up inspections to ensure developments continue to meet their approved landscaping requirements. I would also like the City to examine how many established, in-ground trees have been removed through development and how many have been replaced with trees in concrete planters. How many replacement trees survive three or five years later? Can we measure actual tree canopy and long-term survival, not simply count the trees shown on approved landscape plans?  A small tree in a concrete container cannot automatically be considered an equivalent replacement for a mature shade tree.

    I have similar concerns about open space. As Pasadena adds thousands of housing units, I would like to know how far residents actually have to walk to reach a usable public park or green space. Are there neighborhoods where residents must walk a mile or more to enjoy a park? The City should be mapping actual walking distances rather than simply drawing circles around existing parks, particularly in areas where substantial new housing is being approved. We should know whether Pasadena has established a reasonable standard for access to public open space, which neighborhoods are underserved, and where additional parkland could still be acquired or preserved. Once land is covered with buildings, opportunities to create meaningful public open space may be lost for generations.

    Transportation and parking deserve the same attention. Pasadena’s own 2026 Short Range Transit Plan acknowledges the continued importance of automobiles, particularly in lower-density areas. Yet we are planning and approving housing partly on the expectation that residents will increasingly rely on other forms of transportation. Are changes in travel behavior actually occurring? The City should monitor vehicle ownership, transit use, and neighborhood parking conditions after developments with reduced parking requirements become occupied. That includes tracking changes in residential and overnight parking permit applications, as well as conducting on-street parking occupancy studies before and after projects are completed. Because residents of certain developments are not eligible for overnight parking permits, permit numbers alone may not tell the whole story. Follow-up studies at six months, one year, and two years after occupancy would help establish whether our assumptions about parking and transportation are proving accurate and what adjustments may be needed.

    I recognize that state housing laws have significantly restricted Pasadena’s authority. However, the City established many of its development priorities long before some of these newer state requirements took effect, and our leaders still have a responsibility to use whatever authority remains available to protect residents and the quality of our neighborhoods. The example in your staff report from Santa Monica, where documented traffic and pedestrian safety concerns led a developer to revise a project, shows the importance of ensuring city planning goals and ideals work. Where those laws prevent Pasadena from requiring reasonable standards for sunlight, open space, trees, and livability, I hope our City Council will identify the specific problems and pursue legislative changes in Sacramento.

    I would like this committee to direct staff to provide a public accounting of the concessions and waivers already granted and their cumulative consequences. That should include how much usable open space has been reduced, how many in-ground trees have been removed or replaced with container plantings, whether required landscaping is being maintained, and how reduced parking requirements are affecting surrounding neighborhoods. I would also like to see a neighborhood-by-neighborhood assessment of access to public parks and open space, including actual walking distances for residents of existing and proposed developments. Much of this information could be mapped and made available to the public. It seems imperative that staff examine what our city can still require under state housing laws to keep our city feeling like Pasadena. I would like staff to explain what Pasadena can still lawfully require under state housing laws, identify specific actions the City can take, and establish responsibility and timelines for carrying them out.

    What troubles me most about the August Design Commission meeting is that residents have been raising many of these issues for years. I believe we need an honest assessment of how Pasadena planned for increased density, what provisions were made for the infrastructure and amenities that growth would require, and what opportunities remain to correct any shortcomings. The City’s responsibility should not end when it approves a development or completes construction. We need to know whether these projects are delivering what was promised and whether the surrounding neighborhoods are functioning as anticipated.

    Building more housing is important, but the number of units we produce cannot be our only measure of success. The people who live in those homes deserve sunlight, trees, open space, and neighborhoods that function well. Pasadena should be planning just as carefully for the lives people will lead in these developments as it has for the number of units it can accommodate.

    Thank you for your consideration.

  • Pasadena Did Not Arrive Here Without Warning

    My jaw was practically on the floor as I listened to Pasadena’s Design Commission meeting on Aug. 25. I could not believe what I was hearing. Two thoughts kept running through my mind: We are creating a city that may fail when it comes to transportation and we are tragically proposing and approving apartments where children may never see the sun or have a tree to sit under. And somehow we are calling this progress.

    Thankfully, commissioners were finally questioning the lack of meaningful open space, extremely small units, limited daylight, trees and parking, and whether the housing being built would offer families a reasonable quality of life. But what truly floored me was hearing the word “tenements” used by Design Commission Chair Julianna Delgado during a preliminary discussion of a proposed 144-unit, 100% affordable housing project at 2000 E. Colorado Blvd.
    “It’s almost like we’re building a whole system of tenements,” Delgado said. “So we went for hundreds of years trying to get away from that, and now we have people stuffed in to give them a roof over their head. But life is more than just that.”

    She then observed that people living in historic tenements “at least had a robust street life,” something she noted does not exist along this portion of Colorado Boulevard, and where I personally only see cars whizzing by, empty storefronts and a lack of any meaningful trees.

    I sat there wondering how Pasadena could get so far down this road that the chair of its own Design Commission is now comparing the emerging development pattern to tenements?
    It was Delgado who raised the evening’s most important question: “What kind of housing is it—just cramming people into little boxes or giving them a good life?”

    She is right. We have become so focused on counting units and making everything “affordable” that we have stopped considering the cost. What kind of life will people actually have inside these apartments? The trade-off we are making as a city and state, putting aside our values simply to fit more people within our borders, is a detriment to those we are seeking to house.

    Commissioner Marie-Claude Fares supplied an even more disturbing image. She described units with living room and bedroom windows facing a blank wall only 9 feet away.
    “Putting kids in front of a blank wall in their bedrooms, never seeing the sun—that really, really, really concerns me,” she said.

    We already worry that children spend too much of their lives sitting in front of TV, computer and cellphone screens. Are we now going to build bedrooms with a forced view of blank walls, too?

    Affordable housing should not mean housing built to a lower standard of dignity, daylight, health or quality of life. Families of limited means deserve homes where children can see the sun and residents can gather outside to rest under trees that provide actual shade. These families deserve the same careful planning and high standards that Pasadena should demand for any housing.

    Delgado identified the larger issue, noting that the problem is not a single flawed project.

    “I think I’m more concerned about the pattern that we’re starting to see for acceptable design for 100% affordable projects, which is not acceptable: small units, no open space.”
    The critical word is “pattern.” This is not only about one building. It is about what Pasadena is allowing—and increasingly being required by the state—to become standard. The commission’s candor was both astonishing and encouraging to hear. Residents did not begin raising these concerns last month. I have been hammering away at these exact issues for more than a decade: trees, traffic, open space and quality of design.

    Many of us warned about approving greater density without equally serious planning for parks, open space and trees, transportation, parking, other infrastructure and the impacts to surrounding neighborhoods. We questioned whether the city was studying the cumulative consequences of all these projects.

    For raising those concerns, I and others were too often portrayed as anti-housing—and called plenty of other, far less polite names. Ask about the size of a building and you were deemed anti-housing. Ask where people would park and you simply did not understand the future of transportation or climate change. Ask whether families would have enough open space and you were standing in the way of progress. Our questions were treated as attempts to stop housing rather than legitimate concerns about how Pasadena was growing.

    Now I’m angry because commissioners are asking many of the same questions, but perhaps too late. We have arrived at the precise moment many residents like myself warned was coming.

    The discussion of parks and open space was particularly revealing. Commissioners considered whether development-related fees could help provide those amenities elsewhere. Fees may be one potential tool, but collecting money does not create open space if Pasadena has not identified and preserved land on which to provide it.

    How is the city only seriously confronting this question now, after so many projects have been approved and so much available land has already disappeared? Have we waited so long that most opportunities have already vanished?

    The parking discussion exposed the same problem. If projects are permitted to provide little or no parking, Pasadena needs real evidence about what happens afterward or what tools we have to manage such an important problem. Are the promised changes in travel behavior such as bike riding and using public transit or ride-sharing services actually occurring? Some residents may use these modes of transportation, but many still need cars to get to work, take children to school and bring home bags of groceries. Buses don’t travel to every destination.

    We have to prepare for the future based on the world as it actually is, not the one we hope might someday exist. This is exactly why planning has to come before approvals—not after the consequences become impossible to ignore. The city should study those consequences now—not wait until 2027.

    I recognize that the Design Commission’s authority is limited. Delgado acknowledged that density, height, parking and the loss of amenities through waivers and concessions are often outside the commission’s hands. But “out of our hands” cannot be where Pasadena’s response ends.

    It is also time to stop hiding behind the state’s harsh new housing requirements, which have unquestionably limited Pasadena’s authority. Our leaders should push aggressively for changes when those laws produce harmful results. Every single council member should be pounding on the state’s door and saying, “Enough. We will not stand by while Sacramento forces Pasadena to build housing that no one should have to live in.” City leaders are only as powerless as they allow themselves to be.

    Pasadena is on the verge of being transformed into a much denser city without the parks, trees, open space, transportation, parking, and infrastructure necessary to support that density. That is not progress. Every project approved without addressing those needs makes the problems harder—and perhaps eventually impossible—to correct.

    Pasadena did not arrive at this moment without warning. The writing was on the wall. Residents and commissioners finally appear to be on the same page. There is no more time to waste debating whether these problems are real. It’s time to show up and get to work—and fast. We have a city to save.

    We have a city to save. Join me in advocating.

    Check the home page for ways to show up for Pasadena!