City to Acquire ‘Dozens’ of Homes from Caltrans

The City of Pasadena will acquire “close to two to three dozen homes” from Caltrans before the end of this calendar year, to be sold back to the City at the original prices that Caltrans paid owners when the homes were taken over. The homes were part of land claimed by Caltrans as it attempted to build an extension of the 710 freeway over the last three decades before the project was halted. 

Pasadena Housing Director Bill Huang explained to the Reconnecting Communities 710 Advisory Group in its third-ever meeting Wednesday, the sale is the result of SB 959,  a bill sponsored by State Senator Anthony Portantino, and passed in September of 2022. 

“This bill ‘compels’ Caltrans to sell those vacant homes in Pasadena to the City of Pasadena for the purpose of affordable housing,” said Huang. 

The homes could be sold then as is at market rate, he said, and the net proceeds would go to the City’s Affordable Housing Fund, to build affordable housing elsewhere throughout the City.

Huang described some of the vacant homes as “smaller and modest, with nonhistoric value, and we think that those homes would be good first-time home buyers units.”

The City would then work with Habitat for Humanity to rehabilitate the homes and then have Habitat for Humanity sell them as affordable housing units, he said. 

“But the majority of the units,” said Huang, “would be better suited to be sold at market rate.”

The acquisition of the homes was the highlight of the meeting for the historic task force, which is charged with helping to develop the 710 “Stub” and the community which was essentially eliminated in the early ‘70s as plans for a 710 Freeway extension were being developed. 

According to a staff report prepared for the committee, this section of the SR-710 North was constructed over several years and displaced at least 4,000 residents and resulted in the demolition of some 1,500 homes and commercial and institutional buildings. A majority of the homes were owned or rented by low-income residents and people of color, the report said.

On November 18, 1964, the California Highway Commission determined the routing for the final five miles of the freeway – now known as the SR 710 – through the communities of El Sereno, South Pasadena, and Pasadena to complete the adoption of the Long Beach Freeway.

The freeway never materialized in El Sereno and South Pasadena, but the SR 710 northern interchange was constructed in the City of Pasadena in the early 1970s, resulting in the Northern Stub. 

“The construction of this stub displaced thousands of residents and divided a residential community from an active central business district,” said the staff report.

The SR 710 Northern Stub, from Union Street to Columbia Street was approved by the California Transportation Commission on June 29, 2022, and ownership was transferred to the City of Pasadena on August 15, 2022.

Earlier this year, City staff developed an RFP for consultants to develop a 710 Historic Report, to serve as a wide-ranging master document of the history of the entire freeway project from  inception to the present, and a RFI (request for information) which would articulate “visioning, public engagement, and development of a new Master Plan/Specific Plan for the SR 710 Northern Stub.” 

“The relinquishment represents a unique opportunity to begin the process to connect the fabric of our community and establish a new vision for its future,” said the staff report.

The report added, “The development of a comprehensive Planning Document must consider, but need not be limited to historical Context of the land, the economic opportunities presented, as well as the sheer engineering that will be involved in reclaiming the land for the City once again.”

Those proposals are mostly likely to be reviewed in August, according to David Reyes, who said that the City has received numerous responses to both projects.