City Council tweaks zoning for St. George’s Episcopal Church

The La Cañada Flintridge City Council voted Tuesday to amend part of the city’s Downtown Village Specific Plan, allowing officials from St. George’s Episcopal Church to lease property under its ownership for non-institutional uses.

The two properties — 814 and 820 Foothill Blvd. — were originally designated in the 2000 long-range planning document for institutional use only, according to Community Development Deputy Director Susan Koleda.

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Space at 820 Foothill includes a second storefront (822 Foothill) from which the church ran the Dragon Thrift shop until its closure last June. After the closure, Koleda said church officials found it difficult to identify a lessee whose use of the building would be institutional.

“Staff was attempting to work with the church on attaining a new tenant, (but) because of the institutional designation of the property there was a very, very limited range of uses that may go into that building,” Koleda told the council.

The unanimously approved rezoning from Institutional to Mixed Use 1, which condones commercial use of the space and includes provisions for upper-floor residential and office use, will allow the church to lease the space to a commercial tutoring center that expressed an interest in operating there.

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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine