San Gabriel Valley : VOTE DELAYED

The Pasadena City Council has delayed until March 25 a controversial vote on whether to ask developer Danny Bakewell to pay more for a city-owned site for a proposed supermarket shopping center.

The question of whether to change the terms of the sale came after the city dropped a key requirement that Bakewell guarantee a Vons will stay there for 20 years. Bakewell has changed his development plans and is planning to build additional offices that will bring in extra rent but not provided needed shopping for northwest Pasadena.

The council held a public hearing Monday on changes in the project’s development agreement with Bakewell’s firm, originally approved in 1994.

But after hearing from a few opponents who called the new deal “a gift of public funds,” council members delayed a vote on whether to charge the same price for the land.

The original agreement called for Bakewell’s firm to pay $1.5 million for the land, which cost the city $10 million to make available.

The council scheduled another hearing for next month on the project at Fair Oaks Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard, citing the need to work out more details in the new agreement.

Thomas Parrington, a redevelopment attorney who is opposed to the deal, said the land’s value is increased by an addition of 12,000 square feet of new office space, and by an extra right to sell part of the site. He said Bakewell is also getting $1 million more from the Vons lease than he told the city when it struck the deal on the price.