Pasadena design commissioners told the Pasadena Unified School District on Tuesday that its plan for 110 residences for district employees at the closed Roosevelt Elementary School site does not use the 5.3-acre property efficiently, and asked the district to study building more compactly and reserving land for future construction.
The Aug. 11 hearing on the project at 315 N. Pasadena Ave. was a preliminary consultation, the first step in the city’s design review process, which produces feedback on a design concept rather than a decision.
Chair Julianna Delgado reminded the audience during the hearing that “this is not an approval tonight.” Commissioners’ comments are forwarded to the applicant before the project returns for further review.
“It is, I guess, pretty much our collective opinion that everything about this project is great, but it does not use the land efficiently,” Commissioner Srinivas Rao said.
Delgado said the commission could take off the table any suggestion that its members opposed housing for school employees.
“We’d like to be able to house more school employees at an affordable rate, in a beautiful place that’s not necessarily a gated subdivision from the 1970s or 60s or something,” she said.
Kevin Johnson, the city’s principal planner, said that according to the project attachment he believed the maximum density under the site’s RM-32 standard is 170 units. Commissioner Rob Tyler, adding a caveat that he did not know whether the project is bound by it, said a 20% inclusionary set-aside structured with 15% very-low-income and 5% moderate-income units could yield a 70% density bonus.
“There’s well over 200 units available on this site,” he said. Delgado replied,”It’s double.”
The current proposal is for 110 units, a community center and 223 at-grade parking spaces, consisting of uncovered surface spots and garage parking built into the buildings, said Stephanie Cisneros, the city senior planner assigned to the case.
Joanna Julian of Education Housing Partners, the district’s development advisor, said 80 units are apartments and 30 are townhomes, weighted toward two-, three- and four-bedroom units to serve families.
Commissioner Marie-Claude Fares read the density into the record — about 21 units per acre — and asked whether the district had studied schemes using half the site, costing less, saving the trees and housing the same number of employees.
“I think this is a beautiful project architecturally,” she said. “I think the fundamental scheme of this project does not make sense for what this project is trying to achieve.”
Asked by Commissioner David DiCristofaro how much bond money the project would consume, Julian said the district has no
final price because it is still selecting a design-build firm, then gave a ballpark of $80 million.
Arik Avanesyans, the district’s chief business officer, said that is the amount approved by the Board of Education and the Citizens Oversight Committee.
Tyler said the figure works out to “$730,000 per unit, not including land costs,” and called that “sort of baffling.”
He added: “Do you really think that it’s a good expenditure of public monies to spend by the time you’re done $1.2 million per unit? I don’t know, that’s a stretch.”
DiCristofaro asked what would prevent the district from bringing in a third-party developer with an additional $25 million or $50 million to raise the unit count.
“We’re going to help 110 teachers or school district employees,” he said. “Why can’t we help 150? I mean, we could go up to 170.”
Julian attributed the density to cost, program and context. Higher density costs more per unit, she said, the district has other capital projects drawing on the same bond funds, and the three-story apartment buildings already stand taller than adjacent properties. Townhomes are a district priority for employee households with children, she said, adding the project is “six years in the making.”
Commissioners countered with land banking: build the same 110 units on less of the site and hold the remainder.
“No private developer would build like this. You’re not utilizing the land that you have,” Rao said, adding that costs need not
change because it uses “the exact same buildings. It’s just site planning exercise.”
Delgado said the reserved land could eventually serve district employees who will not benefit from this project.
The project would demolish the existing school and remove 19 protected trees from a site with 95 trees, Cisneros said. Julian said most of the 19 are in poor or fair condition and four would be retained.
Delgado pressed for underground parking to save trees, and when Julian said the district is following the city’s tree replacement matrix, Delgado said it was “not sufficient.” Architect Ross Ramsey of SVA Architects said below-grade easements constrain that option.
Commissioner Joe Feinblatt flagged it. “The purpose of this whole project is to have affordable housing for school employees, including teachers,” he said. “And yet we’re talking about a project that’ll have mostly market-priced housing.”
DiCristofaro asked the district to disclose its allocation rules before approval.
“If you control the access to subsidized housing, that’s a recipe for disaster if you don’t have very, very good governance,” he said, asking specifically whether administrators would be eligible alongside classroom staff. Avanesyans said the policy is unfinished, will prioritize permanent employees and will likely begin with a lottery and waitlist, subject to board approval. Julian said a nonprofit separate from the board will govern the project
and hire a property manager, and that lease terms remain undetermined.
Delgado objected to gating. “A big gated community of public employees on our dime doesn’t sit very well,” she said. Board of Education member Michelle Richardson-Bailey defended it during public comment: “When I think about fencing or gating the property, it’s to protect those children.”
Public comment ran heavily in support, with speakers describing employees priced out of the city. Cisneros said the next step is consolidated design review, then building permit plan check.
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