May 12, 2007 Meeting Summary

Preparation

E-mail reminder was sent to each member who has provided a contact e-mail address.
Laura Ellersieck phoned other members on the phone contact list.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Kathy and Gloria Vacio for hosting our meeting.  In addition to a place to meet, they provided donuts, coffee and orange juice refreshments.  Also thanks to Victor for helping prepare.

Attendees

9 members

Meeting

Agenda Items:

• SMV project (SE corner of Sierra Madre Villa and Foothill Blvd.)
• Kinneloa & Walnut extension project
• Estado street light status
• Info from Edison open house
• What’s happening north of Goodrich substation (south of water well) – transformer storage
• Ice Rink planning status
• Open Space meeting on May 19
• Dog Park upgrades
• anything else attendees wish to discuss

The meeting began about 11:25 am

• SMV project (SE corner of Sierra Madre Villa and Foothill Blvd.)
  • 4 & 5 story buildings 60 feet high and 237,706 square feet with 212 residential units
  • 339 parking spaces on two partially underground levels – all for resident’s use
  • Stuart Pharmaceutical building to be retrofitted into a 350 seat live theater and supporting space totaling 45,000 square feet
  • theater visitor parking of 63 spaces is to be in Gold Line parking garage
  • theater/offices to have 33 on-site spaces for staff
  • 35 bicycle parking spaces will be provided onsite
  • theater expected to do 4 to 5 live shows and four evening acting classes per week
  • construction of residential units from May 2008 to July 2010
  • construction of theater from October 2009 to July 2010
  • access to the parking structure is to be from northbound on Sierra Madre Villa to a road between the buildings and the Gold Line station
  • traffic is not expected to be a problem because the projected trips are below the allowed projections for the area specified in the East Pasadena Specific Plan.  They also get credit for the traffic usage that used to be there when Stuart was using it.
  • “The proposed project was reviewed by the Pasadena Department of Transportation (PasDOT) and it was determined that the proposed Residential/Theater project was analyzed in the Traffic study prepared for the EPSP EIR. PasDOT required that a Traffic Assessment be prepared to compare the proposed project to the analysis of the traffic study in the EPSP EIR. The Traffic Assessment was prepared by Linscott, Law, and Greenspan on January 11, 2007. A copy of the Traffic Assessment is available for review as part of the project file at the City of Pasadena, Hale Building…”
  • Conditions of approval from Public Works also include the developer paying to:
    • add a second left turn lane from north bound Sierra Madre Villa to west bound Foothill Blvd.
    • add a dedicated right turn lane from east bound Foothill Blvd to south bound Sierra Madre Villa

• Kinneloa & Walnut Extension project
  • extension of Kinneloa under the freeway to Titley Ave.
  • extension of Walnut between Sunnyslope and Kinneloa
  • widening of Walnut between Altadena Drive and San Gabriel Blvd.
  • installation of signal at Altadena Drive and Walnut
  • extension of Virginia Ave south across the historic railroad hump to the north side of Walnut
  • construction would be from April to December 2008
  • 1200 linear feet of construction on Kinneloa in 60 foot right of way
  • 1400 linear feet of construction on Walnut within 80 foot right of way
  • 1200 linear feet of road widening on Walnut
  • 60 linear feet of construction on Virginia Ave within 60 foot right of way
  • Will be removing 18 “specimen” street trees.  Will be planting 150 new street trees (every 30 feet).
  • Team Chevrolet will be losing some area < 1/2 acre currently used for parking.  Apparently it is already city property they have been leasing.
  • Street parking will be allowed on both sides of Kinneloa and Walnut.

• Estado street light status
  • City Council has accepted a bid for construction of a street light system on Estado between Santa Paula and Avocado Lane.  Expect construction to start by early July with completion in August.
  • The city has required removal by homeowners and/or will be removing the supposedly non-city-approved trees in the parkway.  In at least one case, the residents were originally told by the city to go ahead and plant their own tree after the city took away the allergy promoting elm they’d just planted.  In another case, a very nice large magnolia will be removed.

• Info from Edison open house
  • Open house on April 16 was very lightly attended.
  • There were lots of Edison people there, some public relations but also experts on various aspects of the project.
  • Learned that the eastern rank of towers already carries two 220 KV circuits.  And that as part of the project, the polarity of one of the circuits is to be changed so that the electromagnetic radiation from one will partially cancel the other instead of adding on as they currently do.  This should result in some reduction of the total electromagnetic radiation from current levels, even with the addition of the 4th circuit.
  • Learned that the new circuit is expected to bypass the Goodrich substation. The city says it does not need additional external transmission capacity.
  • The presence of Edison people to talk to was taken advantage of to ask about the possibility of raising the “too low” lines and improvements to their land maintenance.  The district representative for Edison said he’d look into it.

• What’s happening north of Goodrich substation (south of water well)
  • The area immediately north of the Goodrich substation, south of the water well, between Eaton Wash and the PCC parking lot was recently graded and fenced off from the area to the north. This land is owned by Pasadena Water and Power.
  • A drawing distributed at the January Design Commission for the ice rink shows there are or have been expectations to expand the substation north and to build a joint City / PCC 22,000 sq ft warehouse between the substation and the water well.
  • We have been informed that the current activity is in order to temporarily use the area for transformer storage.

• Ice Rink planning status
  • there has been no public news/activity since the March Design Commission hearing

• Open Space meeting
  • Discussion of how to “preserve our natural open space now”
  • Saturday May 19, 9 am to noon, Eaton Canyon Nature Center
    contact Joan Aebi: [email protected]

• Dog Park upgrades
  • POOCH paying material costs, city doing the work
  • replacement of stolen water dishes
  • two additional shade shelters; will be installed on west side
  • trash cans will be moved
  • buckets with sand & seed will be added for covering poop too messy to pick up
  • another entryway to be added to large dog area
  • spot reseeding/resodding
  • awaiting approval for disinfectant wipe dispensers

• anything else attendees wish to discuss
  • graffiti cleanup
    • sometimes have to call the hotline a second time if it doesn’t get cleaned up within a couple days of the first report.  Sometimes have to provide more specific directions on how to find it.  What may be obvious to you may not be to the cleanup crew.
    • one resident reported being told that WD-40 is useful for cleaning up graffiti when it is still fresh.
  • Edison weed field
    • The weeds are getting pretty high and drying out. Based on what we learned the last two years, the first of three yearly mows should happen real soon.
    • It appears the only land maintenance Edison does is mowing weeds to meet fire danger regulations.
  • PCC-CEC
    • we should make contact with the head of PCC-CEC to share neighborhood concerns and get his perspective
    • trash accumulating in northern end of parking lot

Next meeting is June 9.  At Hastings Branch Library if it has reopened as planned, otherwise TBD.

Adjourned ??