Growing Pains : In Glendora, Hill Projects Draw Fire

City officials in this bedroom community of 43,000 are unaccustomed to civic discord.

Until recently, City Council meetings were sparsely attended. The last time Mayor Kenneth Prestesater and Councilman John Gordon sought reelection, they ran unopposed.

But in the past few months, rumblings of discontent have surfaced amid the oak-lined streets and rambling ranch homes in this city, located along the Foothill Freeway between Azusa and San Dimas.

Three citizens groups are becoming increasingly active, advocating slow growth and chastising the City Council and Planning Commission for permitting what they consider rampant development.

The April 12 race for two City Council seats pits incumbent Gordon and Planning Commissioner Larry Glenn against slow-growth proponents David Bodley and Diane Vivian, both of whom are supported by Glendora Pride, the group most involved with development issues.

“We think (the development) that is happening in the city today is going beyond what a good number of people in the city think should be happening,” said Bodley, one of the founders of Glendora Pride. “We just don’t approve, and it’s got to change.”

Council members have said they are willing to work with the citizens groups to resolve their complaints about growth, but insist that the city is doing an excellent job of managing hillside development.

“We are aware of their concerns, and we will try to negate the problems that their concerns have brought up,” Prestesater said. “But this could have been handled with a 20-cent phone call.”

What distinguishes Glendora’s slow-growth movement from similar efforts that have emerged throughout the San Gabriel Valley in recent months is that the city has not been the site of massive development.

Since 1983, the city’s population has crept upward at an average annual rate of about 2%. Builders have neither glutted Glendora with rows of apartments and condominiums nor splayed miles of tract homes across the town. Instead, the structures that have ignited the residents’ anger are spacious Tudor-style homes, ranging in price from $250,000 to $1 million.

It is not the houses themselves that bother residents, but their location.

With most of the flat land already built up, development has begun creeping up the hillsides, Glendora’s most prominent geographic feature.

“What they’re modifying is one of the primary things that people move to Glendora for--people come here for the foothills,” said Tom Livermore, co-chairman of Glendora Pride, which took its name from the city’s motto, “Pride of the Foothills.”

Last month, about 100 residents attended a special council meeting at which members of Glendora Pride complained that officials were ignoring the intent of the city’s Rural Hillside Residential (RHR) ordinance, passed in 1973 to ensure “orderly and harmonious” development of the foothills.

In response, the council voted to form an ad hoc committee to study the city’s general plan, specifically the hillside ordinance. The committee’s members, to be announced at Tuesday night’s council meeting, will include representatives of Glendora Pride, the City Council, the Planning Commission and local developers.

Glendora Pride members have said they view the study committee as a positive step, but they contend that the city should place a moratorium on all development until the committee reaches its conclusions.

“We could have all our hillsides destroyed before the study group reaches any conclusions,” said Darlene Avina, the other co-chairman of Glendora Pride.

Council members have rejected the call for a moratorium, adding that many of the most vocal critics of development were not present when the projects now under construction were approved by the Planning Commission and the City Council.

‘Don’t Understand’

“The people themselves have not really been involved in the community before, and they don’t really understand all the mechanisms of everything that’s happening,” Councilman Bob Kuhn said. “I applaud these people for getting involved. As for the Pride group . . . I think most of the things they’re looking for have already been included in the city’s ordinances.”

Slow-growth advocates agree that most residents have not shown great interest in local government, but attribute this to the large number of busy professionals living in the city.

“They’re classically hard-working people,” Livermore said. “It costs a lot of money to live in Glendora. You have to work hard to earn that amount of money, and you don’t always have time to go and tell the City Council how you want the city developed.”

Local activists said several isolated events have roused residents from their apathy and brought the various groups into being.

Access to Tract

Bodley and Livermore, neighbors on Lone Hill Avenue in the northwest corner of the city, founded Glendora Pride last fall after hearing that a developer wanted to extend their street--now a cul-de-sac--to provide access for a housing tract on the foothills above their homes.

About the same time, Avina was organizing neighbors in the South Hills area of the city to complain about the construction of 40 additional homes atop the bluff where they live. The South Hills group later joined forces with Glendora Pride.

In light of their protests, the City Council voted to require an environmental impact report before it will decide whether the developer can proceed with Lone Hill Street extension.

Meanwhile, residents of a previously unincorporated area on the city’s western fringe banded together to protest the annexation of their neighborhoods by Glendora, which they said was done without their consent.

“It was the Big Brother syndrome: We think annexation is good for you, and so you’re annexed,” said Les Schlosser, a co-founder of CAUTION (Citizens Against Unfair Takeover Involving Our Neighborhoods).

Parking Ordinance

Group members said they don’t mind being part of the city although they object to Glendora’s ordinance prohibiting overnight parking. A similar county ordinance was in effect before the annexation but was never enforced, they said. CAUTION is asking the city to grant exemptions from the overnight ban.

Vivian, a member of CAUTION, chose to take advantage of her new status as a Glendora resident and run for the City Council on a platform of controlled development.

“I want the growth to slow down,” she said. “I think we’re proceeding much too fast. It’s like a big explosion, and we’re not going to have anything left of the town. I don’t know why (development) has to be at this breakneck speed.”

Glendora Pride and CAUTION then found another ally--the Glendora Preservation Foundation, which was formed in August, 1986, by Jane Negley in an attempt to block the destruction of historic homes and trees that were being cleared away to make room for new construction.

Loose Affiliation

Although the three groups were established to tackle individual neighborhood issues, they have formed a loose affiliation to express dissatisfaction with the city’s hillside development.

“We basically have the same ideas, but we all have different things that we’re working on,” Negley said. “Everyone is affected by (hillside development), because wherever they sit, they can see it.”

One view that unites the various groups is the belief that development is threatening the small-town ambiance that attracted them to Glendora originally.

At the time of its incorporation in 1911, Glendora was a bucolic community of 3,000 people living in a cluster of homes around the present-day downtown and in farmhouses scattered among the surrounding citrus groves.

Village-Like Qualities

In the three decades after World War II, the groves gave way to tree-lined neighborhoods featuring a mix of modest tract houses on the flat land and larger, ranch-style homes in the lower foothills. But while its population increased tenfold, Glendora retained much of its village-like qualities, becoming a haven for harried commuters.

“It’s a quiet, peaceful place to live,” Bodley said. “There are nice trees, beautiful foothills, clean streets. . . . After fighting traffic, you come home and see the hillsides, and it’s very easy to relax here. I think people moving here would like it to stay that way.”

That sentiment is echoed by Guy Williams, a former mayor, council member and planning commissioner.

“Glendora is truly a hidden gem,” Williams said. “Time has really passed Glendora by, and I mean that only in the most favorable sense of the term.”

Taken Great Pains

But although Williams said he shares the slow-growth advocates’ concern about hillside development, he argued that the city has taken great pains to protect Glendora--and particularly its foothills--from runaway development.

“Glendora is, in essence, a slow-growth community, and I would expect that it will continue to be,” Williams said. “I think the limited growth that occurred in Glendora is the lowest in the San Gabriel Valley and probably among the lowest in Southern California.”

Although total residential development increased only marginally in the last year, the number of single-family homes built jumped from 57 in 1986 to 132 last year. And 74 homes are now under construction in hillside areas.

Williams credited much of the city’s ability to control development to the Rural Hillside Residential ordinance, which he helped draft as a private citizen in 1973. The intent of the ordinance was to regulate hillside development “so that essential natural characteristics such as land form, vegetation and wildlife communities, scenic qualities and open space can be maintained.”

Undermined Intent

Members of Glendora Pride say council members have gradually undermined that intent by permitting developers to build projects that do not comply with all of the ordinance’s specific standards.

“They’re giving too many variances,” Avina said. “They don’t take into consideration the quality of life of the existing residents.”

In the last three years, the number of variances granted by the City Council has increased from 14 in 1985 to 18 the next year and 23 last year, said Jim Nash, the city’s director of planning and redevelopment. But council members deny that they are being too free in granting variances, which they view as a necessary planning tool with which the city can control development.

The most common variances granted, council members said, are from the general plan’s height limit. Because multistory Tudor-style houses are in vogue, developers occasionally exceed the 25-foot height limit established in the 1970s when ranch-style homes were more common.

‘Stayed Very Close’

“One of the comments I’ve heard is that there should be no variances,” Gordon said. “Well, state law precludes that. A City Council has to have a variance process to allow for property owners who have a hardship. . . . In my opinion, we have stayed very close to the intent of the general plan.”

Williams acknowledged that the Rural Hillside Residential ordinance “is interpreted more liberally today than it was first intended.” But he added: “The ordinance was never intended to be a tool for placing a moratorium on development.”

Glendora Pride is demanding a halt to development on the South Hills project. Avina has complained that excessive grading has altered the contour of the hills so much that traffic noise from the nearby Foothill Freeway has noticeably increased.

“We did not buy freeway property,” said Avina, who purchased her newly built South Hills home in 1986. “They are devaluing our property by doing this.”

Grading Criticized

Another project that has drawn fire from Glendora Pride is Morgan Ranch, a phased development totaling 112 Tudor-style homes in the city’s northwest foothills. Members of the group have complained that grading for the 12 homes now being built in the project’s fifth phase is disfiguring the hillsides.

However, many of those involved in approving the projects said opposition to the Morgan Ranch and South Hills developments is based only on the appearance of the hillsides. They argue that the broad swaths of brown cutting across the otherwise green hills are only temporary.

“What’s happening is that the public sees the hillside there in a naked condition,” said Glenn, the planning commissioner who is a City Council candidate. “They don’t realize it’s going to be reseeded and fully landscaped.”

Members of Glendora Pride maintain that even after the greenery has returned, grading and development will leave permanent scars on the city’s hillsides and its distinctive image.

‘All Chopped Up’

“We don’t want to look like Diamond Bar and La Verne, with our hills all chopped up,” Avina said. “There’s a sign when you come into the city that says ‘Glendora, pride of the foothills.’ Well, pretty soon, there won’t be any foothills left to be proud of.”

Members of Glendora Pride are also quick to note that grading for the Morgan Ranch project is being done by Prestesater Construction, owned by the mayor. Although slow-growth advocates do not accuse Prestesater of a conflict of interest (he has abstained from all votes on the project), they say the mayor’s construction background makes him favor developers’ interests.

“He’s a pro-development person,” Livermore said. “That’s what he is. There’s nothing illegal or immoral about it. That’s just how he tends to view things.”

Prestesater denied having a pro-development bias, adding that his grading experience was viewed as a valuable asset by civic leaders who asked him to run for the council in 1980.

‘Wanted Expertise’

“They asked me to run because they knew we were getting into the hillsides, and they didn’t want the cut-and-fill (grading) they had seen in surrounding hillsides,” Prestesater said. “They wanted my expertise. They wanted me to help preserve the hillsides.”

Glendora Pride members have raised a similar question about Gordon, whose family owns a large parcel in the foothills. Slow-growth proponents suspect that the councilman plans to have the land developed. Gordon said his family has no such plans, adding that he would rather preserve most of the parcel, which his great-grandparents bought in 1895.

“I know a lot of other property owners have sold their land to developers,” Gordon said. “Our family has not done that--I think maybe because it has been in our family a lot of years, and there’s a lot of sentimental value attached to it. It’s a beautiful piece of land.”

Council members have responded to allegations of pro-development bias by suggesting that some of its members favor no growth, not slow growth.

‘Planned, Orderly’

“Tom Livermore has lived here two years, and he wants to see no more growth,” Prestesater said. “You’ll always find in any community people who want zero development, and that’s not going to happen. We’re going to have planned and orderly growth.”

Livermore bristled at the “no-growth” label, saying the term was being used to turn the business community against Glendora Pride.

As the April 12 City Council election nears, members of Glendora Pride are predicting that hillside development will be a pivotal issue in the campaign. Some others, such as Williams, disagree.

“I don’t personally think it is a major issue with the majority of the people in Glendora,” the former mayor said. “I think they are basically satisfied with the hillside development that’s taken place.”

‘Relative Newcomers’

Williams added that voters prefer council candidates who are well established in the community, describing the slow-growth candidates as “relative newcomers.”

“You have to ask, ‘What is their agenda?’ ” Williams said. “If their agenda is community service, then why aren’t they involved in some of the myriad number of organizations that are working for the betterment of the community?”

Membership in service organizations, particularly the Chamber of Commerce, has been an important prerequisite to winning a council seat. Gordon was president of the chamber before being elected to the council in 1976. Of the three challengers in the race, Glenn, the chamber’s current president, has the most extensive background in such organizations.

Said Prestesater: “Glendora is a town where a man has to pay his dues to run for the City Council.”

Campaign Publicity

Glendora Pride members said they will try to overcome their candidates’ lack of name recognition and experience in service organizations with events such a picnic today in Finkbiner Park to publicize the campaigns of Bodley and Vivian.

Avina called the council an insular group that has been given a free hand by an apathetic electorate. Now that voters have awakened, politics in the city will change, she said.

“I think they’ve been running the city by themselves for years,” Avina said. “It is a bedroom community, and a lot of people haven’t been involved in local affairs. Now (city officials) have gone out of bounds in more than one project, and everybody’s in an uproar. I think it’s going to be a long time before the people are not involved again.”