710 Freeway Plan Hits New Barrier : Preservation: Federal official expands historic districts that would be affected by the extension, including early 1900s neighborhood in El Sereno.

Setting up another roadblock to the repeatedly delayed Long Beach Freeway extension, a federal official has determined that dozens more homes in Pasadena and--for the first time--in East Los Angeles along the highway’s corridor are in historic districts.

Carol Shull, the keeper of the National Register of Historic Places, has added five houses to the original list of 69 historic homes and enlarged the Pasadena Avenue Historic District by about two blocks.

And in the El Sereno community of Los Angeles, Shull identified the area’s first historic neighborhood, the Short Line Villa Tract, a triangular area bounded by Maycrest Avenue on the west, Kendall Avenue on the north and Huntington Drive on the southeast. Some homes in the tract date from the turn of the century.

The decision means that officials from the Federal Highway Administration are required by law to make every effort to protect the historic homes from being razed to make way for the freeway, administration officials said.

“We could do some wiggling of the route and make some other modifications,” said Glenn Clinton of the Federal Highway Administration’s Sacramento office.

Changing portions of the proposed 6.2-mile extension through Pasadena, South Pasadena and El Sereno could delay the project--first proposed in 1965--for years more.

“Legally, they’re going to have to avoid hurting dozens of homes that are in the middle of their freeway,” said Elizabeth Merritt, deputy legal counsel for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

El Sereno community groups praised the decision Friday, saying it backs up their charges in a recent federal lawsuit that El Sereno, most of whose residents are economically impoverished Latinos, has been denied the same treatment by Caltrans as the predominantly white and more upscale areas of Pasadena and South Pasadena that the route traverses.

“It’s environmental racism--they ignored the many wonderful old homes in El Sereno,” said Jessie Granados of the El Sereno Neighborhood Action Committee.

Caltrans officials, however, were less than elated.

“I am shocked and dismayed,” said Ron Kosinski, chief environmental planner for Caltrans’ Los Angeles office.

“We believed the keeper would agree with our thorough review of the area for possible historic properties.”

But Kosinski said he believes a supplemental environmental report can be avoided and the highway will still be built.

Freeway opponents said the ruling is another nail in the freeway’s coffin.

“This is going to significantly delay a project that seems it will now never be built,” said Claire Bogaard, a former director of Pasadena Heritage, a private historic preservation organization. In 1986, the freeway was rerouted to spare a South Pasadena historic district, a setback that added several years to the project.

State transportation officials have been trying for decades to close the gap between the San Bernardino and Foothill freeways, but their efforts have been thwarted by opponents, including the city of South Pasadena.

There have already been four environmental assessments and literally dozens of route changes.

Opponents say the decision to broaden the historic districts tips the scale against the freeway and validates their long-held view that Caltrans overlooked historic houses and districts.

“This pulls down their whole house of cards,” said Antonio Rossmann, legal counsel for South Pasadena.

A re-evaluation of the route’s most recent environmental impact statement, based on the latest developments, is expected to be completed next spring.

The project’s fate has rested with Federal Highway Administrator Rodney E. Slater since October, 1994, when the California Transportation Commission gave final state approval to the route.

“They are either going to have to reject this project or do another supplemental environmental impact statement,” Rossmann said. “This freeway is going nowhere fast.”