Opponents Force Council to Act on Development

Residents have collected enough signatures to force the City Council to repeal its approval of a 520-acre housing development or call a special election to let voters decide on the project. Azusans for a Better Community collected the signatures of more than the 10% of the city’s 15,337 registered voters, City Clerk Adolf Solis said.

The Council will decide April 5 whether to call an election or overturn its approval of the 1,602-home Rosedale development, planned on what now is home to one of the world’s largest commercial nurseries.

In January, the council approved the project on a 3-2 vote with Mayor Cristina Madrid and Councilman Joseph Rocha dissenting. They said the project calls for too many homes for the space.

The project developed by Lewis Homes, an Upland-based housing builder, and the Monrovia Nursery Co. has been a decade in the planning and is intended to house about 5,500 people--more than 10% of Azusa’s current population.

The Monrovia Nursery, which includes land in Azusa and unincorporated Los Angeles County, would be taken up by single-family homes over a 15-year construction period. Rosedale would also include a kindergarten through eighth-grade school, 14 acres of parks, shops and 225 acres of open space in the foothills.