City 710 Advisory Group Establishes Restorative Justice Committee

A seven-member Restorative Justice Committee, formed Wednesday evening as part of the Pasadena Reconnecting Communities 710 Advisory Group, will develop recommendations in support of people who lived or owned businesses in Pasadena neighborhoods leveled to make way for the 710 Freeway Extension construction five decades ago.

The Committee is comprised of 710 Advisory Group members Jose Luis Correa, Adriana Lim, Charles Loveman, Blair Miller, Jasmin Shupper, Bryan Takeda, and Tina Williams.

City staff are to contact Committee members by week’s end to organize their first meeting.

Recent research has begun to illuminate the scope of the displacement 50 years ago, which occurred through various property acquisition methods.

The City of Pasadena’s official website says that the SR-710 North Stub “was constructed over several years in the early 1970s and displaced thousands of residents when their homes were destroyed.”

This construction resulted in the creation of the “Northern Stub” in Pasadena, which “displaced thousands of residents and divided a residential community from an active central business district”

According to preliminary findings by the Architectural Resources Group, 64 residential buildings containing 93 units were displaced in the area south of Union Street, along with 16 commercial buildings and eight institutional buildings, including churches and schools.

Additional displacement occurred between Union and Walnut streets. That research is ongoing.

Many residents reportedly received inadequate notice or compensation during the displacement process. While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in federally funded projects through Title VI, researchers found no evidence of its application in the 710 displacement. The Uniform Act of 1970, which mandated fair treatment and relocation assistance, came too late for most affected property owners.

The Committee will collaborate with a consulting firm Estolano to review and potentially recommend modifications to the City Council’s working definition of “restorative justice.”

Operating under Brown Act requirements, meetings will be held in public spaces like community centers and parks. The committee may provide interim feedback to the Council’s ad hoc committee before making final recommendations for the master plan.

The Restorative Justice Committee is one of multiple planned standing committees. Others focus on land use and data collection, economic study and market analysis, mobility and circulation, and climate resilience.

The next community workshop is scheduled for January 25, 2025, at Art Center College of Design. Progress updates are expected to be presented to the Pasadena City Council on November 25, 2024.