Details on Stalled Housing Project Set for Airing Today

Pasadena housing officials on Monday will meet the requirement that calls on them to bring a pre-development plan review (PPR) to the City Council.

However, the council cannot act on that plan.

According to a staff report, COB Investments LP has submitted a PPR application to build 105 units, including eight very low income units, on contiguous properties at 270 and 282 N. Los Robles Ave., a parking lot once owned by Fuller Theological Seminary.

Because it was owned by Fuller in 2006, when the Fuller Theological Seminary Master Plan was approved, along with a related Development Agreement, the property falls under the agreement and it cannot move forward in the process until the master plan and the development agreement are amended.

The agreement stipulates that any new housing units in the Fuller Master Plan must be affordable and must be used exclusively by Fuller (e.g. students and faculty).

“Therefore, in order to construct the proposed project, the restrictions on the site by the Fuller Master Plan and Development Agreement would need to removed, either by removing the site from the Fuller Master Plan and Development Agreement or amending both documents to allow non-Fuller market rate housing at this site,” according to a city staff report.

The developer has acknowledged the project falls under the jurisdiction of the Fuller Master Plan.

Fuller Seminary is currently amending its Master Plan and Development agreement, a process that began in March. It is not known if the process has been delayed by the coronavirus.

This is not the first time the plan has delayed a project. Buyers backed out of a deal two years ago after they attempted to purchase the property housing the seminary, which also can only be converted to affordable housing.