New Hurdle Faces La Vina Developers

After 3 1/2 years of courting public support, confronting environmental concerns and addressing potential traffic problems, developers of the La Vina project in Altadena found themselves facing yet another potential obstacle last week: aesthetics.

“I guess I’m troubled by (the fact that) everything is exactly the same thing; every pad is the same width,” said Ed Edelman, chairman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. “It looks like an urban development in sort of a rural-type area.”

At a hearing Thursday, Edelman expressed concern that the proposal for 272 houses in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills north of Lincoln Avenue would change the zoning from non-urban, with a density of one unit per acre, to residential, with 2.5 units per acre.

County staff members were instructed to prepare additional information on housing density, as well as on the impact of traffic, the adequacy of the environmental impact report, and a proposal for a school that the county Regional Planning Commission had recommended eliminating from the project.

The Board of Supervisors scheduled a second hearing Sept. 28, when a final decision on the project is expected.

On Thursday, supporters of the La Vina project turned out in force. More than 150 people sported large yellow “Yes La Vina” buttons, many of them arriving in buses chartered by the developers, Cantwell/Anderson, who also bought the supporters breakfast and lunch.

By contrast, opponents of the project mustered only about 25 people to carry picket signs outside the supervisors’ chambers. They wore small white buttons proclaiming “I Love Altadena,” with a heart substituted for the word love.

“We’re homeowners trying to get by,” said La Vina opponent Cue McKenzie. “We don’t buy lunches. We don’t buy breakfast. We don’t buy buses and barbecues for them.”

McKenzie was referring to a barbecue held two weeks ago at the development site. Free balloons and pony rides for children were included, opponents said.

But La Vina supporter William Turner, pastor of the 1,200-member New Revelation Baptist Church in Pasadena, said he appreciated the developer’s efforts to involve the community.

Cantwell/Anderson has promised that Altadena residents will have the first option to buy houses in the project, Turner said. “The development group didn’t have to make any kind of offer to the community. Other developers always left out the community.”

In their 3 1/2 years of preparation, the developers hired a firm to survey public opinion, eliminated multifamily housing from the project, reduced it by 88 houses and created a job-training program for San Gabriel Valley youths.

A year ago, opponents outnumbered supporters at a Regional Planning Commission meeting. Letters to the commission ran more than 2-1 against the project. But by Thursday’s hearing, the group of supporters had grown and easily outnumbered the critics.

Developer Tim Cantwell attributed the change to recognition of the benefits the project will bring to Altadena.

“This is viewed as a tremendous boost to west Altadena,” Cantwell said. “It needs an economic jump-start, and this will provide it.”

The project calls for the houses to be built on 220 acres at the end of Lincoln Avenue. Part of the land was once the site of a tuberculosis sanatorium with 17 buildings. The remaining acreage is one of the few undeveloped parcels in the community. About 180 acres of the privately owned land is within Angeles National Forest.

Plans call for the houses to be clustered in five villages with gated entries on Lincoln Avenue and Loma Alta Drive. Surrounding the houses--expected to range in size from 1,700 to 3,000 square feet and cost between $250,000 and $400,000--will be 108 acres of open space.

The developers are seeking amendments to the county General Plan and the Altadena Community Plan to allow residential construction on land zoned as open space, low-density residential and, where the sanatorium once stood, institutional.

Opponents have contended that the U.S. Forest Service might be interested in buying the land. At Thursday’s hearing, attorney Deborah Bucksbaum again raised this issue, saying a representative from the agency had surveyed the land, but she had no further information on the possible purchase.

Bucksbaum also questioned the accuracy of the project’s environmental impact report, which was done in the summer when fewer animals would be found, and cited the danger of landslides if the foothills are developed.