Development Diplomacy
A massive housing project proposed for the Ambassador College site in Pasadena--perhaps the largest ever considered in the city--also is shaping up as Pasadena’s most divisive development imbroglio.
Two well-organized local groups have drawn a line in the roses over a proposal by Legacy Partners, a Foster City, Calif.-based real estate developer, to build 1,727 housing units on the 48-acre campus southwest of the Old Pasadena shopping district.
The intensifying debate over the Ambassador site occurs at a time when Pasadena residents are struggling with the growing urbanization of their once-quiet city. The success of Old Pasadena and the opening of the Paseo Colorado mall have flooded West Pasadena streets with traffic, and developers plan to build an additional 1,500 housing units in the city’s downtown.
The strategic battle over the future of the Ambassador College site is a snapshot of growth control, circa 2002. Neighborhood groups have become more sophisticated about the esoteric rules of city planning. And both the developer and its opponents seem to be playing the controversy like a game of chess, anticipating each other’s moves.
Opponents claim that the proposed housing more than doubles the existing density found in surrounding neighborhoods. They also claim that the project does not respect the city’s planning policy on either traffic control or urban design. Some opponents hint they will file lawsuits if the developers do not scale back.
To support their statements, the 600-member West Pasadena Residents Assn. has issued a series of white papers studded with planning details. They have hired an independent consultant to challenge the conclusions of the developer’s traffic plan. And the group has proposed a development alternative it claims will satisfy the developer’s basic financial needs while taking pressure off the neighborhoods west of the Ambassador campus.
“We are not in the litigation business,” said Vince Farhat, president of the homeowners’ group. “We are working with the city to be strong advocates [for the neighborhood] and to make the project better.”
The property owner, the Worldwide Church of God, and the developer, Legacy Partners, have opened by offering to preserve many of the site’s historic homes and gardens, as well as the nine-acre “great lawn” at the center of the campus.
The developer also announced a complex plan to finance the re-opening of the long-shuttered Ambassador Auditorium, considered by many to be the finest concert hall in Southern California.
The church has issued a warning, which opponents view as a veiled threat: If the City Council fails to approve the project, the church will sell the property piecemeal to developers, resulting in potentially greater densities than those outlined by Legacy.
Starting in 1947, the Worldwide Church of God assembled the Ambassador campus from 138 properties, including several stately houses along Orange Grove Boulevard that had become dilapidated.
During the 1960s and ‘70s, the church built a number of college buildings, industrial facilities and the concert hall, while filling in several streets to create two large campuses on either side of the 710 Freeway spur.
At its peak in the late 1980s, Ambassador College had 1,200 students, and the church and college together had 1,000 employees. In the mid-1990s, however, the Worldwide Church of God experienced a schism brought on by doctrinal changes, and the church lost much of its membership. Ambassador College closed in 1995 as revenue fell.
“We have only 15% of the money that we generated at our height in 1989,” said Bernard W. Schnippert, the church’s director of finance and planning.
The Worldwide Church of God spends about $12 million annually to maintain its large complex of buildings and elaborate gardens. “Some people expect this push and pull and tug to last for another five years, but that is false,” said Schnippert. “We can’t sustain it.”
After considering two other development concepts for the site--one for a hotel and conference center with housing, and the other for a 1-million-square-foot building for dot-com incubator Idealab--the developer settled on a residential plan. Some of the tallest and densest buildings will be on St. John Avenue, next to the 72-foot-tall Ambassador Auditorium. The developer plans a mix of single-family houses, town homes, condominiums and apartments.
The church plans to sell the property to Legacy for an undisclosed amount, after the developer gets the go-ahead from the city.
Schnippert said the price is set and would not be affected by how much, or how little, could be built on the Ambassador site, but hinted that without a certain number of homes the developer could not afford to proceed.
Although the project does increase existing densities, those densities fall within the limits set by the West Gateway Specific Plan, the planning document approved by Pasadena City Council in May 2000. That document allows densities of as many as 14 dwelling units per acre along Orange Grove, and increases the density to 48 units along St. John Avenue. The highest density is allowed on the east campus, with 60 units per acre.
“The density will bring a hell of a lot more traffic,” said Gordon Odell, president of a group called Save South Orange Grove, who presented the Pasadena City Council with a petition signed by 1,100 residents protesting the project. He added, “We think [Orange Grove] is extremely threatened.” He has hinted the group may sue if it remains dissatisfied with the project.
Farhat of the West Pasadena group blames the West Gateway plan for making the church believe the property is a gold mine. “Where the process went wrong,” he said, “is that the density allowances in the specific plan gave rise to unrealistic expectations of value.”
According to Farhat, the church is marketing the property at a “much higher price” than it would otherwise command, in the belief that the Ambassador property can support high-density development.
William Shubin, a Legacy senior vice president, told a crowd of more than 500 residents at the Pasadena Hilton last week that the density of the project is not unprecedented.
Many existing residential and commercial properties in the Ambassador area are more dense than what Legacy is proposing, Shubin said.
Additionally, the design guidelines “contain more restrictions” than required by the city’s zoning laws, Shubin said.
Farhat said he supports development on the east side of the Ambassador campus--the side closest to Old Pasadena and commuter rail connections and farthest from the homes and apartments along Orange Grove. “The win-win scenario is to move forward with the east campus,” he said. “Let the church make some money, rather than have the church spend the next 20 years fighting us.”
If the church is forced to sell the property piecemeal, the number of homes on the Ambassador Campus eventually could approach 2,400, Schnippert said.
The church official acknowledged, however, that that high number could be achieved only by demolishing the Ambassador Auditorium and all historic structures and gardens--something he said the church does not want to do. “It’s not that we’re trying to make threats,” Schnippert said. “It’s more like a plea.”
For the time being, the church awaits recommendations from the city’s Transportation Advisory Commission next month and the Planning Commission in May. The certification of the developer’s final Environmental Impact Report, which could trigger lawsuits if opponents remain dissatisfied, is set for June.
To help the city negotiate design issues with the developer, Pasadena hired Los Angeles-based architect John Kaliski. His goal, he said, is to “define the character of Pasadena, which, in turn will help us create a set of design guidelines.”
Kaliski said development on the west side of campus adjoining Orange Grove should reflect Pasadena’s City of Gardens ordinance. That law calls for the harmonious integration of architecture and landscape, courtyard housing, uniform setbacks to preserve “view corridors” and preservation of human scale.
The architect said he is optimistic that some accord can be reached between the quarreling developer and local residents.
“The church, the developer and the residents actually all have the same goal,” Kaliski said. “They just don’t necessarily all interpret the end result the same way.” The task at hand, he added, is: “Can we really get the design to match everybody’s words--because the words are very similar.”
