Developer Proposes Largest Demolition of Existing Apartments in Pasadena in Recent History

The largest demolition of existing apartment units in recent Pasadena history could happen if developer Carmel Partners moves ahead and obtains city permission for plans it submitted last June to raze six buildings at 260 North Los Robles Avenue, according to city planning staff.

“We have never as a city had a project that has proposed the demolition of so many units, absent the freeway construction,” Deputy Director of the Planning Department David Reyes said.

The apartments at that address, formerly owned by Fuller Theological Seminary, provided low cost housing to students and the larger theological community until Fuller sold the complex to Carmel Partners about two years ago.

Carmel’s Predevelopment Plan Review application called for demolishing six existing apartment buildings in order to build 432 market-rate apartments plus 47 very low-income units at a separate site, according to a city staff report submitted last year.

“The overall plan is that we would demolish the buildings,” Neils Cotter, the Vice President of Development for Carmel Partners said on Monday, declining to comment about the timeline or scope of the project.

The last large demolition in city staff memory was the razing of over one thousand homes for the construction of the 210 freeway in 1970, according to Reyes.

Development of the property faces several hurdles. The permission for demolition depends partly on city approval of an amendment to Fuller Theological Seminary’s Master Plan, which currently designates the property as a location to expand student housing.

Those Master Plan revisions could take up to 18 months according to Reyes.

The planning department is waiting for complete applications from both Fuller Seminary and Carmel Partners, officials said.

Some affordable housing activists said this demolition would take a large toll on the city’s currently available affordable housing.

“These are permanent losses of affordable housing. It’s like dinosaurs going extinct. South of the freeway, especially, it’s abhorrent what’s happening over here,” tenants rights attorney Phillip Koebel said.

Jill Shook, a long time community advocate for affordable housing, has been working with a housing organization to try to prevent what she describes as a large loss.

“All the buildings being torn down were affordable. It’s a huge loss. With our inclusionary housing ordinance, since 2001, we have produced 440 units now in the city. In one fell swoop with Fuller choosing to sell all of these units to a high-end developer, we’re losing 190 units. That’s close to half of all of our gain via inclusionary housing in the last twenty years for the city,” Shook said.

Carmel’s plans were presented to the City Council last June. Since then a new state law, AB 2222, has taken effect. It requires that every low income housing unit on a demolished property be replaced in the new housing development in cases where the developer applies for a density bonus.

The density bonus law allows developers to build more units than what is usually allowed by the city in exchange for building a percentage of affordable housing.

Last Monday Carmel Partners representative Lauren Madden said Carmel still intends to utilize a 48 percent density bonus for the 260 North Los Robles Avenue project.

With its stringent one-for-one replacement requirements, the new law could make a difference in what ultimately happens to the property.

“Its those little rays of hope like AB 2222 that encourage me and give me hope we can get more of a level ground,” Shook said.

For more information on the Carmel proposal, click here.