Zoning Appeals Board to Review Market’s Denied Application to Sell Beer, Wine, Distilled Spirits

The City of Pasadena’s Board of Zoning Appeals will decide on two zoning cases during public hearings Wednesday, April 5, at a Special Meeting of the Board – one seeking a Conditional Use Permit to allow the off-site sale of alcohol products at 1511-1515 E. Washington Blvd., and another requesting to create three air parcels for residential condominium purposes at 349 E. California Avenue.

About the first case, an appeal was submitted after the hearing officer disapproved the Conditional Use Permit application by Golden Market, an existing Food Sales land use facility on the site, filed in September last year.

The applicant was seeking permission to sell beer, wine and distilled spirits, but a summary on the case said staff could not make the necessary findings to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages, citing an undue concentration of alcohol outlets within the census tract. Staff determined the proposed sale of alcoholic beverages from the site would “detrimentally affect the surrounding commercial, institutional and residential land uses” within the area.

A Staff Report prepared for the hearing says the Planning and Community Development Department is recommending that the Board uphold the previous disapproval. Planning staff also cited the off-site alcohol sales have the potential to create problems such as loitering, public drunkenness, noise, littering and negative impacts in the area, as well as the site’s close proximity to existing religious facilities, schools, and residential uses.

A conclusion in the report said the proposed alcohol sales use would not be consistent with the goals and objectives of the Zoning Code and the General Plan.

On the site at 349 E. California Avenue, the hearing officer approved Tentative Parcel Map #073535 where the applicant wanted to create three air parcels for residential condominium purposes in November 2016. The request was in addition to an approved project to demolish a single-story residential building and detached garage on the site, a rectangular corner lot on the northwest corner of California Blvd. and Euclid Avenue, and build on it a two- to three-story residential building.

The building project has passed a Final Design Review in April 2016.

After approval by the hearing officer, the Madison Heights Neighborhood Association submitted an appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals citing disagreement with the decision.

The appeal cited two issues as basis for the appeal: that the project should be subject to a Focused Environmental Impact Report due to traffic issues, and that the project would be out of character and not in scale with existing adjacent development, including the historical bungalows to the north of the property.

In a Staff Report for the hearing on Wednesday, the Planning Department said the project has gone through all levels of review including approval by the Design Commission and the Historical Preservation Commission last year and therefore has been found to comply with citywide design principles in the General Plan Land Use Element. The report also said the project has been determined to be categorically exempt from CEQA as part of the approval of the Consolidated Design Review.

Planning is recommending therefore that the Board of Zoning Appeals uphold the hearing officer’s decision allowing the three air parcels.

The Board’s Special Meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Council Chambers, Room S249 at City Hall.