Although appointed by the city staff and as an advisory group not subject to open meeting laws, the newly appointed body promises to work closely with the with the community and city council to bring much needed senior housing to the city by way of the Heritage Square development. -DB
Pasadena Star-News
July 24, 2009
By Janette Williams
PASADENA – Pledging a fresh era of transparency in the latest effort to develop Heritage Square, a newly appointed working group is promising a lock-step city and community process to finally build one of the most contentious projects in Pasadena history.
A public meeting on Heritage Square at Jackie Robinson Center on Thursday evening was the first since last year’s effort to choose a developer officially ended in December, when a year-long agreement with Long Beach-based Retirement Housing Foundation expired.
Members of the working group emphasized a new spirit of cooperation and renewed focus on bringing housing for low-income seniors to Northwest Pasadena.
“This project truly is a project for the community,” group member Charles Nelson said. “This is the first in a series of community meetings, and transparency is something we are very concerned about. We would not move forward without approval at the beginning of the process.”
The working group was appointed by city staff and is not subject to the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, since it is not a legislative body.
Its members include Nelson, Ishmael Trone, Ralph Poole , Maria Isenberg and alternates Annette Nicole of the Northwest Commission and Bryant Lylesof the Fair Oaks Avenue Project Area Committee. City representatives are Jim Wong and Bill Huangfrom Pasadena’s Housing Department.
The group, officially called the Heritage Square Request For Proposal Working Group, laid out a plan that would first bring low-income senior housing to the roughly 3-acre site the city owns on Fair Oaks Avenue, between Orange Grove Boulevard and Painter Street.
Phase 1 calls for the construction of about 80 senior units on about two-thirds of the site, while Phase 2 would provide about 4,000 square feet of commercial or mixed-use space.
Securing funding for Phase 2 will be very difficult in the present economic climate, Trone said. But 100 percent of funding is likely to be available for the senior housing portion, he added.
Huang said funding could potentially come from “pretty typical sources,” including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, plus the state, county and city.
As the process starts anew, Nelson said the group wants “two-way communication” and to hear what community members do and don’t want from Heritage Square.
Only briefly mentioned Thursday was the background of a years-long debate over the selection process that reached levels of acrimony and finger-pointing rarely seen in the city.
The working group said this time around every effort will be made to consult with the community and keep everyone informed.
Assistant City Manager Steve Mermell said the project is going back to square one, first designing selection criteria and a process that everyone can agree on.
“With everyone in agreement, we can move diligently but cautiously … and if we do it right the end is a good result,” Mermell said. “We all want this project to go forward.”
Huang said that, as before, city staff ultimately will recommend the selection of a Heritage Square developer to the City Council.
But, he said, staffers will work in “close coordination with the community … to avoid any controversy at the end.”
Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
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