Los Robles Project Hearing Postponed for Lack of Quorum

The Council Chambers were packed but the dais was not: controversial South Los Robles Avenue project hearing was postponed Monday, January 13, 2020 when two Councilmembers did not attend the meeting.

A hearing on a modified version of a controversial Los Robles Avenue development was postponed by Mayor Terry Tornek, when he learned that Monday’s meeting would be short two members—Tyron Hampton and John J. Kennedy.

Five members of the Council are enough to hold an official meeting, but Mayor Terry Tornek wanted a full Council to hear and vote on the development.

“This is too big an item to discuss with two [Councilmembers] missing,” Tornek told Pasadena Now Monday. “It’s just too important, and too controversial. It’s already in litigation, and I felt that we could maybe tolerate one missing Councilmember, but not two, to take it up.”

The proposed modified project at 253 Los Robles Avenue, is a 91, 217 square-foot, five to six-story, 90-unit multi-family residential housing units with eight “very low income” units, and a three-level subterranean parking garage.

In July, an attorney for the developers Zhuang and Zhong, LLC, threatened to sue the city after the city refused to approve the project. The same attorney has threatened to follow through with the suit, should the project not be approved this time around.

The attorney, Richard McDonald, asserts that the project must be approved based on state law.

The Madison Heights Neighborhood Association, has argued, meanwhile, that the project would “exert a negative cumulative impact on the area.”

There is no official word yet as to when the project will return to the Council for a hearing and vote.