Not a Good Time for McDonald’s : Altadena: Although they have no legal grounds, residents are trying to stop a planned drive-through restaurant.

Stiff, organized resident opposition to a proposed McDonald’s restaurant at the northwest intersection of Altadena Drive and Lake Avenue has prompted County Supervisor Michael Antonovich to ask for a delay in the issuance of a building permit for the structure.

The week’s delay will allow employees of the county Public Works Department’s traffic and lighting division to investigate complaints that the drive-through restaurant could pose a traffic problem and endanger pedestrians.

But the measure is only a stopgap, said Ollie Blanning, Antonovich’s field deputy.

“The reality is, there is nothing legally that can be done in terms of requiring a traffic study,” Blanning said. “The county per se, let alone the citizens, have no legal ability (to stop construction).”

Residents opposed to the restaurant would like to block it altogether, but some say they would compromise on the design and drive-through window.

The use of the site for a McDonald’s restaurant conforms to the county General Plan, the Altadena Community Plan and the commercial zoning for the area, Blanning said. Traffic studies and environmental impact studies requested by residents for the restaurant were completed years ago for the general area when the land use plans were adopted, she said.

McDonald’s officials in the company’s Illinois headquarters and in regional offices in Woodland Hills declined to comment about their plans in Altadena.

Carroll Ellison, franchise operator of a nearby McDonald’s in Pasadena who will run the new Altadena restaurant, said McDonald’s corporate officials are responsible for purchasing and building the restaurant. She said she has no knowledge of the safety issues but added that she, like the residents, would be concerned about traffic problems.

“I wouldn’t want any accidents,” Ellison said. “We want to be a productive member to the community as we are in Pasadena.”

Yet the proposed restaurant, which is expected to do only half the volume of business of the nearest McDonald’s restaurant two miles away, has virtually overnight become an issue in this 40,000-member, unincorporated community north of Pasadena.

Cathy Cota, a five-year resident and member of the Poppyfields Assn., a homeowners group, said the surge of interest in the 30-seat drive-through is linked to the county’s approval last year of the controversial La Vina project, a 272-unit housing development in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills.

The La Vina approval “has prompted people to be more vocal and more protective of the area,” Cota said. “People are becoming aware that things are changing up here.”

That awareness caused the Altadena grapevine to buzz last month when a transaction involving the proposed restaurant was notarized. Word quickly spread of the coming restaurant, Poppyfields member Lita Murray said.

Residents then urged the Town Council, an advisory group to the supervisors, to invite McDonald’s officials to a Land Use Committee hearing.

At that meeting last week, four restaurant corporation officials found themselves outnumbered by more than 200 angry residents.

Saturday, 50 residents marched for three hours at the restaurant site, carrying signs reading “Knife the Mac” and “Save the skies, not the fries.”

Residents are opposed to the restaurant for a variety of reasons. Many object to any new construction in Altadena. Some believe the air will be fouled with cooking fumes, while others think the restaurant is out of place on a street that is primarily residential from the corner north to the foothills. But most object because of traffic concerns.

The new restaurant would be located at the bottom of an 8% incline on a busy, four-lane road, Murray said. The site is also near two nursery schools, an elementary school and a junior high school to which children walk.

Residents have begun a letter-writing campaign to county officials, even though they recognize they have no legal basis for their opposition. But Cota, who said she has talked over the phone to McDonald’s Corp. President Edward Rensi in Illinois, believes that officials of the multimillion-dollar corporation may listen to the small-town concerns of Altadena residents and design the restaurant in Mediterranean style without a drive-through window, as locals are requesting.

After her talk with Rensi, Cota said: “I really got the feeling that they would be cooperative.”