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Pasadena City Council to Revisit Proposed 550-Unit Development at Space Bank Site Tonight

Published on Monday, July 16, 2018 | 5:38 am
 

The Pasadena City Council on Monday will again consider allowing a developer to move forward with plans to build a large mixed-use project on the site of a self-storage business and former naval weapons testing facility, a week after the Council took no definitive actions on four of the project’s five measures.

Pasadena Gateway LLC, a subsidiary of Dallas-based real estate developer Trammell Crow, wants to put 550 apartments and 9,800-square-feet of retail and restaurant space on the property that currently houses Space Bank Mini Storage, at East Foothill Boulevard and Santa Paula Avenue.

The site was used as a naval weapons testing facility years ago, and the developer has revealed that there is a likelihood that some toxic chemicals leftover from those days still contaminate the soil. The developer has promised a thorough clean-up as part of the project, and the project has received the blessing of Pasadena’s historical and conservation nonprofit group, Pasadena Heritage.

Proposals to amend the city zoning map to accommodate the project, permit the removal of 17 trees and otherwise get the paperwork rolling fell one vote short at last week’s Council meeting, at which Councilman Victor Gordo was absent. Only an approval of the staff’s environmental impact report was approved.

Of the Councilmembers in attendance, only Gene Masuda voiced opposition to the project. He said he is concerned about the proposed project’s environmental impacts and effects on traffic. The Space Bank site sits in his district.

But Mayor Terry Tornek said he’s hopeful the project will be back on track after today’s Council meeting, when a quorum of Councilmembers in favor of the project is expected to attend.

“This is a critical project,” he said. “It’s an important project for the city. It will clean up the toxic, polluted site. It will generate 69 units of affordable housing. It’ll generate significant revenue.”

“It’s consistent with all of the city’s planning documents,” the Mayor added. “It may still not pass. I mean, the fact that we have a full Council doesn’t guarantee that it’ll pass, but it deserves to.”

Councilmember John Kennedy said he hadn’t yet taken a firm position.

“I’m not sure how I’m going to vote,” he said last Friday.

“I must say that the fact that the City Councilmember representing that area, as I understand it by virtue of his vote, is not in favor of the development because there are just too many unanswered questions, that fact is persuasive,” Kennedy said.

“The problem for me, in part, is how do you make the residential component safe when it’s so close to a freeway?” Kennedy said, referring to studies conducted of San Bernardino County where cancer clusters were found which might be associated with people residing too close to a heavily trafficked freeway.

Kennedy said he would like to hear more input from experts regarding the possibly toxic contamination at the site, as well.

“Having said all of that, there is a possibility that I could support the project. But right now, it would be extremely difficult for me to do so,” he said.

Tornek said he understands some of his colleagues’ reluctance to build homes so close to the I-210 freeway, but it’s simply not realistic to prevent any development within 500 or 1,000 feet of a highway.

“Everybody’s entitled to their own perspective. But I think, on balance, this is a project that should be approved,” Tornek said.

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