Alhambra City Hall (Photo – Frank Qiu)
On January 27, the public’s opportunity to address the Alhambra City Council began. About 35 comments came from realtors, developers, and business interests speaking in favor of the 839-unit luxury development, and about 49 comments came from residents opposed, of whom over thirty were long-time residents or natives of Alhambra.
By Melissa Michelson
At least six speakers supporting the development read a form letter, citing a “much needed economic boost” and repeating a buzz phrase of “much-needed housing.”
A market study still is needed to confirm these assertions.
Opponents of the development were concerned with the lack of affordable housing for low-income wage earners. They also expressed concern for inadequate plans for toxic mitigation of the 32-acre Environmental Protection Agency-designated Superfund site in the middle of Alhambra’s industrial zone, inadequate study of vapor intrusion of the nearby single-family residential neighborhood, and inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the developer’s Environmental Impact Report traffic study. Those and other expressed concerns put the needs of people before the developer’s desire for profits.
Open Letter from an Alhambra Planning Commissioner
Alhambra Planning Commissioner, Ron Sahu, asserted that the five-member City Council should uphold the Planning Commission’s recommendation to reject the developer’s proposal: The letter from Sahu to the City Council is included below.
Sahu is an appointee of Councilwoman Adele Andrade-Stadler, in whose district the development is located. Over 300 public comments were submitted and read to the Planning Commission taking up five separate meetings between July and September. On November 2, 2020, after hearing the developer’s rebuttal to the public, the Commission formally voted to reject the development. That was the final recommendation sent to the City Council. (Emery Park Community Group has excerpts of the resolution and a link to the formal document):
Dear City Council Members
My name is Ron Sahu. […] I am a member of the Planning Commission. As you know, the Planning Commission spent considerable time taking public input and deliberating on this item, recommending denial of not only the as-proposed version of this project but also a revised, smaller version of the project. The public record clearly confirms that the Planning Commission was diligent in its assessment of the project and its recommendation was not made lightly. The developer had ample opportunity to cure or address major deficiencies and was not able to or did not desire to do so. Based on this I have the following comments.
First and foremost, as a threshold matter, you should uphold the Planning Commission’s recommendation of denial. That preserves the integrity of our decision-making process in the City and is not only respectful of the considerable effort expended by all ten members of the Planning Commission over at least five months, but, in addition, sends a clear signal to not only this developer but also others that they cannot and should not be rewarded by the City Council and simply get what they could not in the Planning Commission. [Emphasis supplied] Of course, you have every right to consult with your respective Planning Commissioners as to how and why they made their recommendation. And, if you so desire you can also engage the entire Planning Commission to understand the recommendation of denial as part of your deliberative process. But to simply disregard and overturn the recommendation is unwise. If you do so, you will not and should not expect your volunteer Planning Commissioners to waste their time on future important matters.
Second, having denied the project, it is of course your right and responsibility to engage in negotiations with the developer to see if there is an approvable version of the project. However, crucially, the scope of this negotiation should begin with the last version that was denied by the Planning Commission. Distressingly, I am aware that the developer has been engaging with the community as a prelude to this meeting, by suggesting that the City Council begin with the original 1061 unit version of the project, which was a complete non-starter at the Planning Commission.
Third, in your negotiations, please be mindful of the specific issues which were the basis of the Planning Commission’s concerns and denial. These include: the overall size of the project, the lack of meaningful affordable housing at all levels, traffic impacts, parking issues, environmental concerns, and lack of meaningful community benefits. In the limited time I have I will briefly touch on a couple of these aspects.
Fourth, project proponents argue that the project is essential to meeting our housing needs. And, they are right. However, these needs have to address affordability and not just overall numbers. And, crucially, housing has to be safe. When the state and regional RHNA numbers require additional zoned capacity for housing, they implicitly want this additional housing to be safe. Just as no one would mandate unsafe housing from a structural standpoint, similarly housing has to also be safe from an environmental standpoint. The site sits on top of a Superfund site that is decades away from being mitigated. It also sits on contaminated soils that are subject to multiple other historical activities. Yet, in spite of this, the developer was unwilling to address reasonable mitigation for soil vapor migration, relying on a technically deficient, rubber-stamped finding by the Regional Water Quality Control Board. Let me remind the council that when people who live on the site become sick in the future, this Board has no legal liability. Instead it will be the City and its taxpayers that will be held liable for allowing this development to proceed without mitigation. Therefore, the developer should include mitigation and also agree to completely indemnify the City in perpetuity for any future toxic tort suit that might be brought by future residents who might live here.
Lastly, the developer continues to tout the financial benefits that will accrue to the City and the Alhambra Unified School District as a result of the project. I want to stress that when the Planning Commission inquired about the basis for the millions of dollars of claimed benefits, it did not get any backup answer whatsoever. After some considerable stonewalling, what we received were two memoranda discussing the methodology of how these numbers had been arrived at but none of the actual inputs and numbers. Plainly the City Council should not rely on these “benefits” without understanding their assumed bases. I also urge the new AUSD Board to not rely on these unsupported benefits without demanding and understanding the actual assumptions behind these numbers.
Regrettably, time does not permit me to specifically address the other concerns that drove the Planning Commission’s denial of this project. I am happy to discuss them with any of you at your convenience.
/s/ Ron Sahu
The City Council’s public hearing on The Villages will continue on Thursday, February 4 at 6:00 pm, before Council’s deliberations and vote. Members of the public can send in comments to lmyles@cityofalhambra.org before 5:00 pm on February 4, or can petition dtran@cityofalhambra.org to speak at the meeting.The Zoom link for the public to participate is on page 2 of the February 4 agenda and packet.
Leave a Reply