Group Stalls Nursery’s Redevelopment

A referendum may be the only way for Azusa to settle a dispute over how to develop 500 acres of green foliage and flowers in the city’s northeast corner.

Plans to develop this oasis, known as Monrovia Nursery, have been long coming, but after two years of talks, not one of the 1,250 planned single-family detached homes, condominiums and townhouses has been built.

The Monrovia Nursery plan -- designed by more than 200 residents at community meetings -- resembles the camellias grown on the land. Neighborhoods radiate from a park like petals. The core proposed development would contain a recreation facility and retail stores. A “promenade district” would be a retail area for strolling shoppers and would include a transit plaza and an elementary school. A 200-acre open green space would crown the development.

But the plan, approved by the City Council last February, is tangled up in court because a community group wants fewer homes built on the site and is suing the city, the council, the city clerk and the nursery for a chance to let voters decide what is best.

According to a fiscal analysis done for the city, the development would produce about $1.7 million a year in new revenue. A multimillion-dollar development agreement between Azusa and the nursery also gives the city a benefits package in exchange for the guarantee that what is laid out in the plan actually gets built. Benefits include a $5-million development fee, more than $1.1 million for traffic improvements, and a $2.5-million endowment for a community foundation.

“This proposal is essential to the city’s future,” said Councilman Dick Stanford. New buyers enticed by the nursery development would revive what he called the “downtown cadaver.”

The community group Azusans for Responsible Growth stalled the development after circulating petitions in an attempt to force a referendum.

The group argues that the plan would overdevelop the land and overpopulate the area. Residents defeated a previous attempt to build 1,600 homes on the nursery in 1999 after a similar group got the issue held to a community vote.

Lana Grizzell, the organization’s spokeswoman, said that members were not against building, and that some just want to weed out a number of the houses, especially the condos. She said Azusa already is choked with rental properties. Figures from the 2000 census show about 50% of the houses in Azusa are rented.

Grizzell said the group also wants single-story homes and larger lot sizes to limit development. She said the group would accept lot sizes of at least 5,000 square feet for single-family homes.

According to the plan, the smallest lot size in the development would be 4,000 square feet for single-family homes, though typical lots would be larger. The entire development would have about four units per acre.

City Manager Rick Cole said residents who designed the Monrovia plan wanted to create an area of “new urbanism” that would blend timeless design principles with efficient use of land and space.

But Mayor Cristina Cruz-Madrid, the only council member to vote against the proposed plan, said she wants a better development for the city.

“This land is not an urban environment,” Cruz-Madrid said. “To pretend it’s a downtown place or a commercial place is an insult.”

The legal dispute stems from City Clerk Vera Mendoza’s rejection in April of the 2,347 signatures gathered by Azusans for Responsible Growth. According to court documents, Mendoza, who must validate the signatures before the matter can be put to a vote, said the information had been submitted in a haphazard fashion.

Azusans for Responsible Growth filed its lawsuit June 4.

Grizzell said group members had paid an estimated $30,000 out of pocket for the litigation. Monrovia Nursery is absorbing all the costs of the case on the city’s side but would not disclose the amount.

Michael Tyner, president of Azusans for Responsible Growth, said the group had never meant to drag out the issue, but just wanted to make sure residents had as much say as possible about the development.

“If this goes through a vote and the community says, ‘We like this project,’ ” he said, “then we are happy. We are done.”