Local, County and State Leaders Set to Join West Pasadena Residents’ Association Discussion of the Housing Crisis at Group’s Annual Meeting

Southern California’s housing crisis will be the primary topic as local, state and county leaders join in the West Pasadena Residents’ Association’s annual meeting on Thursday.

The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and will take place online via Zoom, organizers said. This year’s meeting has been titled “The housing crisis: How do we build our way out of the affordable-housing shortage?”

The meeting will be open to the public and will be available online at https://tinyurl.com/wpra2021.

It will focus on exploring ways the city “could expand its inventory of affordable housing without losing its unique identity,” the WPRA said in a written statement.

Panel speakers are to include Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo and Councilman Steve Madison; Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger; State Rep. Chris Holden, D-Pasadena; State Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Glendale; Pasadena Planning and Community Development Director David Reyes; Heritage Housing Partners Executive Director Charles Loveman Jr.; and Abode Communities President and CEO Robin Hughes.

The round table discussions will address a number of topics and issues currently in contention here in Pasadena and throughout the state, and are expected to touch upon state vs local control, public transit and parking, and gentrification.

The organization invited the community to send housing-related questions in advance vi email to commvp@wpra.net.

The WPRA will also bestow its Community Service Award to Rosa Laveaga, former Arroyo Seco Project Supervisor and also to Priscilla Taylor, who recently retired from the WPRA Board of Directors after serving 26 years.

The WPRA represents roughly 7,000 households, according to the organization. “[It] focuses its efforts on the area of West Pasadena bounded by Colorado Boulevard on the north, Fair Oaks Avenue on the east, and the Pasadena city limits on the west and south and on the interests of the residents of that area,” according to a statement on the WPRA website.

“We take interest in matters wider in scope such as Pasadena’s Civic Center, the Rose Bowl, the I-710 north stub, Pasadena Unified School District, public transportation and commercial constructions in other districts that may create adverse zoning precedent for greater density, height and massing of future structures within our own boundaries,” the statement added.

More information on the West Pasadena Residents’ Association is available on the group’s website at https://wpra.net.