Space Bank Hearing Scheduled For Planning Commission

The Planning Commission is scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday on a Planned Development Plan for a controversial project at a site formerly used by the Navy to test weapons.

Developers want to build a 500-unit housing project at 3200 E. Foothill Blvd. in East Pasadena, currently the site of a Space Bank storage facility.

The meeting was originally scheduled for last week but was rescheduled.

Critics claim the land beneath the site contains harmful chemicals.

The site housed the Naval Information Research Foundation from 1940-1978, according to the Department of Toxic Substances Control. During that time, the Navy conducted testing and other scientific work involving “classified materials, testing, and other weapons,” the Department of Toxic Substances Control wrote in a report about the site in 2018.

The latest renewal request cited economic hardship and difficulties in securing construction financing as reasons for the delay. The original buyer, Pasadena Gateway, LLC, was unable to proceed with the project, prompting S&O Properties to seek a new buyer.

The project includes eight separate residential and mixed-use buildings, subterranean and above-ground parking, landscaping, and 9,800 square feet of retail and restaurant space.

The City Council approved the project in 2018, and the Planned Development Plan became effective that year but was scheduled to expire two years from the effective date unless a building permit had been issued and construction diligently pursued to completion.

Local residents filed a lawsuit against the project after it was passed, and another one could be on the horizon.

“Thousands of Pasadena residents have already sued to protect themselves from the flawed 2018 site redevelopment plan,” wrote Kristin Shrader-Frechette in correspondence to the commission. “For city planners, without any obvious scientific expertise, to renew the scientifically outdated plan that now clearly violates 2023 CA scientific testing standards for toxic sites — is to invite another such lawsuit, one that should be much easier to win.”

The project was opposed by Councilmember Gene Masuda, who represents the area where the project site is located, along with Councilmember Tyron Hampton and then Councilmember Victor Gordo, who is currently in his second term as Mayor.

In 2019, the state Department of Toxic Substance Control twice refused to extend the review period on a work plan to remove toxic substances from the soil beneath a local storage facility that could be torn down to make way for a housing development project.

Mayor Terry Tornek requested the review period be extended after local residents expressed concerns about the state’s procedure. Tornek’s letter was a follow-up letter to demands made by Councilmen Gene Masuda and Victor Gordo.

The Department of Toxic Substance Control agreed to extend the review period for 20 days after the pair requested a separate three-month extension.

On March 30, 2020, the City Council authorized the City Manager to suspend the time limit due to the pandemic and allowed an automatic 24-month extension to the expiration time limits of a Planned Development Plan. As established by the 24-month extension under the City Council resolution, the project’s expiration date was extended to summer 2022.

The plan was later renewed until this year.

The developers said they would test for royal demolition explosives (RDX) and trinitrotoluene (TNT), but maintained explosives were not tested at the site.

The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that RDX is a possible human carcinogen based on the presence of liver tumors in mice that were exposed to the substance for one to two years. People who inhaled large amounts of dust containing RDX suffered seizures.

Trinitrotoluene (TNT) can cause birth defects, spleen enlargement, and abnormal liver function, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The project received approval from the Department of Toxic Substances Control for a Removal Action Workplan. The Removal Action Workplan evaluated removal approaches to clean up the site so that it is suitable for proposed commercial and residential development.