A vote button superimposed on a Alhambra street (Photo – Graphics Dept.)
They said it couldn’t be done: stopping a big wig developer in his tracks from building over a thousand market-rate units, in the name of “much needed housing.” But Alhambra did.
By Melissa Michelson
Wayne Ratkovich of The Ratkovich Company (TRC) wasn’t fooling anyone in Alhambra into believing that he was aiding in the housing crisis, when comps for new condos nine blocks away were over $800k– not fooling anyone… not the community, not the Planning Commission, and not the City Council. With Ratkovic’s partner Elite International Investment, it was clear who would benefit most: foreign real estate investors.
February 24, 2023 marks the end of 6 years of controversy over the so-called “The Villages”, 790 to 1,061 market rate units in massive 5-story buildings with 4,347 parking spaces on 33 acres of a Superfund land that had been used for decades as an airplane manufacturing site .
After attempting to sue the City of Alhambra for denying his project, Ratkovich and Elite lost their lawsuit few weeks ago. LA Superior Court ruled in favor of the City of Alhambra on all counts, and by default, in favor of the community: “…Council’s legislative decision to deny the development agreement was not arbitrary, capricious, or entirely lacking in evidentiary support.”
During the 13 months of Zoomed proceedings, Wayne Ratkovich would sometimes make an appearance. He would tout himself as a home-grown Alhambran. But once the City Council decided his project would not benefit the community and unanimously voted it down, after its final six-hour meeting on October 25, 2021, he sued the City, demanding Alhambrans’ tax dollars for damages.
Emery Park Community Group, a neighborhood group from Emery Park in Alhambra, along with residents from other parts of Alhambra and the San Gabriel Valley, were outraged at the thought of even worse traffic on Fremont and nearby intersections that were already gridlocked. The developer’s own traffic engineering firm admitted as much about their traffic study: “These results yield “significant and unmitigable” impact, referring to the worsening of vehicle circulation times at multiple intersections should the development be built.
The judge at LA Superior Court agreed and found “substantial evidence in support of [City] Council’s findings related to the denial of a development agreement, including the findings of inconsistency with General Plan circulation policies.”
The community took issue with the developer’s claim that his development would bring ‘walkability.’ There was no public study done to show the office staff working there could actually afford to live on site or would even want to. Also, the affordable housing, set-aside for some of the apartments and no for-sale units at the moderate-income rate, was negligent.
TRC-Elite’s January 20, 2022 lawsuit claimed, “The City’s disapproval of The Villages…constitutes a clear violation of the state Housing Accountability Act (HAA) and the City’s own planning and zoning standards,” but the judge disagreed, deeming the project unprotected under the HAA.
After four months of Planning Commission meetings with 377 public comments in 2020, and nine months of City Council Meetings and hundreds more public comments in 2021, the City of Alhambra, united with the community, have spoken, and so have the courts: There will be no “Villages” in Alhambra.
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Residents from other cities should study how the victory was accomplished.