We Get Letters: Puzzled

Dear Editor:

I’m puzzled why Stephen Lipira mischaracterized my comments at the August 10th Planning Commission in his August 22 Letter to the Editor.

He insinuated that I was insulting the residents of Northwest Pasadena. In fact, in criticizing the intrusive design of the housing development proposed at Fair Oaks and Villa, I referenced the injustice of the 210 Freeway being deliberately routed fifty years ago to divide the city, part of an historic policy to isolate Black and Brown residents of our city that I wrote about last year in Pasadena Now: “How a Black Pasadena Family’s Challenge to White-only Real Estate Covents Culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Landmark Ruling Outlawing Them Across America.”

Along with the rest of my Planning Commission colleagues, I was advocating for a design that would respect the surrounding historic residential character of the area, rather than continue the scale of the Central Business District along the Fair Oaks Corridor. Here’s what I actually said:

“The corridor should evolve ultimately when we adopt a specific plan to be the kind of village atmosphere described in the General Plan that I think we all have concluded this project does not comport with.”

“Ten thousand Pasadenans were evicted from their homes to make way for (the 210) freeway. That freeway is one of the worst scars ever inflicted on our community. Most of those evicted were poor people, most of those were people of color. It created the whole Northwest ghettoization of our community, but the freeway is there — in all its ghastly scale — and to just ignore that and continue the Central Business District north of the freeway is yet another slap in the face of the Northwest. So in that context I think we have to be very careful about the design and the context.”

Rick Cole
Planning Commissioner

Got something to say, email Managing Editor André Coleman, at andrec@pasadenanowmagazine.com