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The issue is important: The ‘Building Hight Limit’ for South Pasadena
Previous legal opinion has emphasized that an existing voter approved height limit takes preference over state law.
The height limit will be on the ballot in again November. South Pasadena residents are urged to be aware of this situation and public opinion should be heard – without being manipulated by the city’s contract survey firm and before the ballot wording is approved.
Click Here to visit the City of South Pasadena’s ‘Ballot Measure’ Webpage.
A brief history
Is South Pasadena Ready to Become Pasadena, or Alhambra? It starts with ‘building height limits’ and Its on the agenda – again.
For decades, developers have been drooling like wolves at the hen-house to build-out South Pasadena. There’s money to made: tens of million of dollars; at the expense of the South Pasadena lifestyle and livability.
The City of South Pasadena has hired a firm to ‘educate South Pasadena residents’ on how wonderful it will be and critically important it is to build taller buildings. But voters knew back in the 1980’s that this was coming and it’s wrong, and voted accordingly – to protect our little town and family oriented way of life.
The residents again shut down the ‘sell-out and built tall’ way of thinking back in 2020, and now the South Pasadena ‘building height Limit’ is being pushed on the residents again, but this time by using our tax dollars to pay a firm to tilt the messaging in an attempt to manipulate the public into a life-altering decision.
This tactic, especially on this issue, has serious ramifications.
For example, An excerpt of the legal opinion from the firm (South Pasadena’s Retained Law Firm) of Craig, Steele, Shareholder, Richards, Watson & Gershon:
“Local government agencies and officials are often keenly interested in legislative and
administrative actions by other government entities; and perhaps more so in the actions of the voters.
Whether supporting or opposing legislation or administrative action, or informing the voters about the importance of a ballot measure local government officials can find themselves competing with multiple interest groups for the attention of legislators, decision makers and voters. The laws that regulate advocacy by local government agencies are more restrictive than laws that govern private advocates.
Courts view the use of public resources to generate impressions of support on one political side or the other as a “distortion” of the political process.
It’s one thing to state the position of an agency directly, such as through the agency’s lobbyist or legislative testimony, adopting a resolution of board support for a ballot measure, or distributing factual information to constituents. But using public funds to campaign for or against a ballot measure, or to seek “grassroots” support for a bill, crosses a legal line that can have significant consequences for the agencies and public officials involved….”
What about this “survey” from the city on the ‘height limit’?
The recent ‘survey’ published by The City of South Pasadena has left many residents distrustful on how this current process is being executed. Below are a few of the responses sent-in to The South Pasadenan News
South Pasadena Resident, Past Mayor, Rich Schneider: “I have been made aware of a “survey” done concerning the 45′ height limit. Apparently, the survey purported to find out public opinion, but it was it was slanted and pointed to a preferred outcome.
I don’t know the authors of this survey, but it is certainly not to be relied upon for public decision making.”
South Pasadena Resident: “The survey gave me a bad impression from the start by asking for an opinion on the performance of various community groups that may or may not have anything to do with the subject supposedly being addressed.
What, even, was the position of these groups regarding height limits? Have they all weighed in on the subject? The survey went on to do a poor job of giving me any background on the current state of the height limits in town, leaving me unable to determine what kind of change is represented by the proposed limits.
South Pasadena Resident: “The lack of information left me confused and anxious about the upcoming process, even as someone who’s worked with city planning issues throughout my career.
I felt that it was churned out in order to confuse the issue, more than anything. I was dismayed at how unprofessional this whole thing was from the first screen.”
“To educate the residents regarding the proposed building heights ballot measure, a so-called “anonymous” community survey was conducted.
The phrasing of the statements and the vagueness rather than specifics of the proposal did not educate. It was quite clear that the survey was to advocate for the measure. After each reiteration of the “facts,” the survey inquired pointedly if the respondent would now be inclined to vote yes. No other options or discussions were permitted to state which portions were acceptable and which were not. It also asked, early on, whether the respondent believed in what certain organizations (specifically listed in the survey) said in either their support or opposition concerning this ballot measure.
As such, the survey creators would then determine on which “side” the respondent was on. Could it be that the questions and statements that followed that list of organizations were different for respondents in favor of the measure versus those that were not? Only a public records act request can answer that question.”
Planning information and professional opinions have been presented to the city. Expert research has proven the adequate ability to increase housing units without an unnecessary height limit change.
In a video of the August 29th special council meeting where Kaiser Rangwalla was making a presentation to council about the General Plan and based on buildable model exercises with Moule & Polyzoides a highly respected architectural/planning firm that we trust, he stated “most of this can be accomplished within the height limit and you don’t need 10 story buildings to achieve RHNA.”
Local professionals agree with the above statement of Kaiser that our RHNA allocation could be built within the 45’ height limit.
If the City completely removes the present height limit, instead of increasing it, which has not been justified, then we would theoretically have no height limit at all.
So, does the City of South Pasadena have a satisfactory explanation as to why building heights of 84’ and above, when our RHNA allocation can be accomplished with the 45’ according to our city’s own consultant?
If not, the citizens of South Pasadena will have to conclude that pro-development forces are attempting to highjack our town which would be an incentive to vote “no” on any height increases over 45’.
