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The City of Pasadena’s Planning and Community Development Department is recommending that the City Council approve an application by a group of residents in the area of Rose Villa and Oakdale Streets in Pasadena’s District 7 to have their neighborhood declared as a Landmark District.
The recommendation will be discussed extensively in a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday, January 3, during a Special Meeting of the City’s Historic Preservation Commission. The hearing is a continuation of initial deliberations in the Commission’s meeting on November 17 last year.
In a Staff Report, David M. Reyes, Planning and Community Development Director, said the proposal meets the criteria for designation as a Landmark District and should be approved by the City Council.
Pamela Aschbacher, one of the applicants and a member of Pasadena Heritage, said their group has been going through the processes required by the City to get the designation approved. The other applicant on record is Barbara Miller.
“We essentially went door-to-door asking people to think about it, and over a period of time gathered their signatures,” Aschbacher said. “I believe the city requires the owners of at least 51 percent of the properties agree to this and sign the petition. And then we had to look up the historic information about those properties that’s in city records – who was the original owner, who was the original architect and builder, and at what date the house was originally designed and built.”
Aschbacher described the area as mostly having one or two-story homes built in the early 1900s to about 1940 through 1945, or mostly pre-World War II residences.
“The emphasis in our particular area architecturally is some Craftsman-style architecture but mostly what they call ‘period revival,’” Aschbacher said. “Those were homes by people who had been in World War I and had been exposed to European architecture and were looking for the next big thing after the Craftsman era, so they started building homes that were influenced by Spanish architecture, French, German, English, so you’ll see little Tudor-style cottages and that sort of thing.”
When an area is declared a Landmark District, property owners and developers would have to go through a more stringent review process before any major renovation or redevelopment can be implemented among the homes and other buildings in the area.
“There are certain things that can and can’t be done or there are certain things that we need to review to make sure that they’re not inappropriate additions or modifications done to the building themselves,” says Leon White, Principal Planner at the Planning and Community Development Department. “It doesn’t stop you from building – you just have to go through a process to do it.”
A property owner or developer who may have purchased a property within the Landmark District will have to apply for a Certificate of Appropriateness that has to pass through the Historic Preservation Commission and the City Council before any major renovations are done, White explained.
The larger area that’s covered by the application is bounded by E. Del Mar Blvd. and E. California Blvd. north and south, and by S. Hill Avenue and S. Allen Avenue east to west, east of the complex owned by Caltech.
The public hearing starts soon after the Special Meeting of the Commission opens at 6 p.m. at the City Council Chambers at City Hall.
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