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Pasadena’s Department of Planning and Community Development will brief members of the City’s Planning Commission on Wednesday about updates on proposed amendments to the Zoning Code relative to “mansionization,” the practice of building the largest possible size of home on a given property.
The commission meets online at 4:30 p.m.
The meeting is accessible to the public via Zoom.
Serious discussions about mansionization at the city level began in 2015 when the Planning and Community Development Department either initiated or took part in citywide community meetings focused on single-family neighborhood issues.
Other meetings were also held focusing on Lower Hastings Ranch and on Hillside Overlay District areas, which helped the department learn about neighborhood concerns about mansionization from a wider cross-section of the community.
The meetings also helped them draft design guidelines that could eventually cover all other single-family residential zones in the city.
Around the middle of 2018, the Planning Department submitted a draft of “single-family residential design” guidelines that was the result of those community and consultation meetings. The guidelines were intended to provide enough guidance for homeowners and applicants for new housing construction to ensure that their projects, new or accessory, are appropriate with the surrounding neighborhood.
Since then, the Planning Commission and the Planning and Community Development Department have been exchanging notes to determine which provisions in the draft guidelines needed to be refined in order to address concerns by members of the community about the potential for “mansionization” in Pasadena’s single-family residential neighborhoods.
The concerns have centered on potentially inappropriate size, scale, massing, on-site location, design and style.
In particular, the local nonprofit Pasadena Heritage has been vocal about these concerns over the years. The nonprofit has been saying that new developments were continuing in Pasadena “at an aggressive pace” and presents a constant challenge to the historic character of the city’s residential neighborhoods.
To access the Planning Commission’s special meeting on Wednesday, go to https://us02web.zoom.us/j/
The public may send comments before the day of the meeting to tmolinar@cityofpasadena.net, and on the day of the meeting through www.cityofpasadena.net/
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