We Get Letters

I think Erica Foy, Vice President of the Madison Heights Neighborhood Association,  is sounding an alarm that has been ignored for far too long.  We have let professional planners rather than Pasadena citizens shape our city despite supposed copious public participation. Why?   Partly because of City Council’s decisions and strong direction from its leadership to increase tax revenue by building new hotels and allowing more multi-stacked, multi-storied condo-canyon apartment buildings with few set-backs and lucrative density bonuses. Yet while we are building and crowding and cementing over our naturally blessed special home, other cities are fleeing the very conditions we continue to try to build here.  Just look at the mass exodus by those who can afford it in attempting to leave overcrowded cities like New York.

Let me be clear.  I support more affordable housing and have worked diligently to promote greater equity in employment and housing.  But the pandemic has made it clear that Pasadena is now on the wrong track.  We need to preserve and protect more of the natural environment that brought people to Pasadena in the first place and until recently, kept them here.   We need to follow the lead of the mayor of Paris France who is building more bike lanes and tearing out old plazas to make room for small urban forests.  And her constituents are totally behind her idea of bringing the rural back into the urban.  That’s the direction we need to follow.  No more allowing well-connected attorneys to work deals that allow more cookie-cutter construction when less is required.

It’s time once again for Pasadena residents from the Northwest to the South to come together and speak out for protection of Pasadena’s unique character and environment.  Please join in the webinar at https;//www.ourpasadena.org/ECSP-Rd3-OH-LiveWebinar on Thursday, August 13th at 6 p.m.   Your voice can make a difference.