Senior Housing Project Gets Go-Ahead
Redevelopment officials this week decided to move ahead with the city’s largest residential redevelopment venture, a project that would nearly triple the city’s stock of senior apartments and create dozens of affordable townhomes.
The $45-million project would include the construction of 272 condominium units, 212 senior apartments and 38,000 square feet of retail commercial space. At least 20% of the units would be priced for low- and moderate-income households, Assistant City Manager Dave Caretto said. The development would be located at the southeast corner of Rosemead and Washington boulevards.
At its Tuesday meeting, the Redevelopment Agency voted unanimously to authorize city staff to draw up an agreement between the city and Braemar/TRF, a Southern California firm.
Caretto praised the project for serving both the need for affordable housing and an acute shortage of apartments for senior citizens. More than 20% of the residents in this city of 59,000 are 62 or older, said Bill Shannon, the city’s community development director.
“Our senior housing facilities have substantial waiting lists of over a year,” Caretto said. “The 212 units will be absorbed very quickly.”
There are two senior housing complexes in the city, both built more than 10 years ago with federal assistance.
The Redevelopment Agency initially would contribute as much as $7.8 million to help finance construction of the project, but the developer eventually would refund 43% of the amount. The city money would come from its low- and moderate-income housing fund, which can be used only in projects that increase the number of affordable homes. The city currently has about $10 million in this fund, Caretto said.
The city and the developer still must iron out some details of the tentative agreement, including the building design. The city plans to draw up the formal contract within 60 days, then hold a public hearing before the plan goes to the City Council for final approval. Completion of the project is three to four years away, Caretto said.
The development would occupy a 13-acre site that is currently a hodgepodge of vacant lots interspersed between a handful of businesses and three of the city’s older motels. The new construction also will require the demolition of 13 homes, some of which have been owned and occupied by the same residents for more than a decade.
Two of the parcels are already in escrow and negotiations are under way with the remaining homeowners. The city has not yet approached the business owners, nearly all of whom occupy the east side of Rosemead Boulevard, across from the giant Northrop Corp. plant.
The corner has been the subject of numerous redevelopment efforts since 1983. Previous efforts collapsed when the developers would not commit the necessary money.
Dan Goodman is in no hurry to see redevelopment touch the corner of Rosemead and Washington, where he has operated Pico Rivera Florist since 1976. “I depend upon the Northrop customers across the street,” Goodman said. “If I’m relocated, I’m dead.”
He said the redevelopment agency last contacted him two years ago, when it wanted his store to make way for a now-abandoned hotel project.
“The hotel developer wanted to pay $100,000 for my business,” Goodman said. “I had it appraised at $1 million.”
Next door, at the Starlite Lodge, assistant manager Michelle Tu was skeptical of the city’s ability to complete the proposed development.
“They keep saying they want to do this,” she said. “They said this eight or nine years ago. But when we call City Hall about it, they say call back in two or three months. They always give the same answer. They’re looking for someone with the money to do this.”
Tu said the hotel has been in a damaging limbo for eight years, since the property became part of a redevelopment zone. She said potential buyers back away from the property and that the owners would lose their investment if they paid for an expensive remodeling.
Past redevelopment projects elsewhere in the city have included a 223-house residential development, a 144-unit condominium complex, two large shopping centers and several smaller shopping areas. Redevelopment became a hot issue in Pico Rivera when council members in July approved doubling the city’s redevelopment zones to take in about 30% of this 8.5-square-mile city. Residents jammed meetings over fears that the city would use its condemnation power to force them from their businesses and homes.
The council later stipulated that it would not use the eminent domain power to expel homeowners in the added zones. Dissatisfied residents circulated petitions to put the redevelopment expansion on the ballot. They gathered more than 4,000 signatures, about 1,800 more than required. The city clerk’s office is currently waiting for those signatures to be confirmed by the county registrar.
Regardless of the outcome, the city can move forward with the development at Rosemead and Washington. That site has been in a redevelopment zone since 1983, and the city has retained its full condemnation power there.
Despite his criticism of past redevelopment attempts, business owner Goodman supports redevelopment in concept, as long as the city puts the interests of home and business owners ahead of the developer’s concerns, something he said has not happened in the past.
