Pasadena city staff vs. Planning Commission

Last night's decision by the City Planning Commission not to approve the All Saint's church plan for a modern glass building that people say would clash with the current downtown architecture, highlights what appears to me to be an increasing divide between city staff and the commission (Janette Williams wrote about the meeting here- she also told me that people got quite heated at the meeting last night, which ran past midnight.)

Besides opposing the city's recommendation in this issue, the Planning Commission also made some majorly different recommendation on the city's Housing Element, which asked the city to move up consideration of several housing issues, including modifying the ordinance on allowing second units in Pasadena property. The commission wanted that considered at a council meeting by March, whereas the city staff recommended setting the deadline for next March.

The commission also unanimously rejected a zoning change in the North Los Robles Blvd. neighborhood that would have allowed increased density in the area. Staff had recommended the change to settle a lawsuit (much more on that here).

The City Council ends up caught in the middle of these varying recommendations- in the Housing Element case, they asked city staff to bring back a timetable it felt was realistic that could hopefully could lead to ordinance changes being debated sometime before next December.

In the North Los Robles case, City Council appeared to be leaning towards settling the lawsuit until Margaret McAustin abruptly decided to vote against the change, even though it meant the city will likely have to go to trial in a lawsuit brought by a local developer. McAustin was on the Planning Commission when it originally took up a related zoning change in 2006. Based on my conversations with council members before and after the zoning change vote, I believe most expected the settlement to go forward, and were surprised that McAustin changed her vote, and probably not particularly happy about it either.

Expect things to get interesting in the contest for Sid Tyler's seat as well- one of the candidates, Terry Tornek is on the Planning Commission, and a pretty outspoken slow-growth advocate. According to Janette, he was pretty active in last night's meeting, speaking out against the All Saint's project.

While nobody in the City Council can be labeled as a big advocate of increased density and development in the city, Tornek is markedly more active as an opponent of those things. If he were on council, it could mean a slight shift in how the city looks at development- McAustin could be a natural ally for him there. Some of the other council candidates, including Ciran Hadijan, John Walsh, and Margaret York have also talked about the need for slow-growth policies, though unlike Tornek, none have been in a commission position where they have pretty clearly shown how their voting records would differ from the current council's.