1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I am writing as a Pasadena resident to urge you to oppose the amendments to SB 677 that Mayor Victor M. Gordo requested in his December 30 letter to Governor Newsom. Our city desperately needs housing, and these proposed changes would undermine SB 79's transit-oriented development requirements. Mayor Gordo's letter seeks to exempt Old Pasadena, the Playhouse District, and Civic Center historic districts from housing mandates because they appear only on the National Register rather than local registers. The city also wants to eliminate the 10% cap on area exemptions for historic resources and remove the January 1, 2025 cutoff date for qualifying designations. These amendments would create massive loopholes that could exempt significant portions of our city from building housing near our six Tier II transit stops along the A Line. Pasadena has 138,000 residents and claims this justifies treatment similar to cities under 35,000 people. This argument is absurd. We are a mid-sized city with substantial transit infrastructure, exactly the type of community where dense housing near Metro stations makes the most sense. The mayor states that some zones already permit 87 dwelling units per acre, but if we already allow such density, there should be no problem meeting SB 79 requirements. Historic preservation is important, but it cannot become a blanket excuse to block housing in one of California's most transit-rich cities. The mayor claims Pasadena has upzoned properties since 2015, yet our housing crisis has only worsened. We need state enforcement to ensure local officials actually build housing rather than finding creative ways to avoid it. I ask you to stand firm on SB 79's requirements and reject Pasadena's requested amendments to SB 677. Our community's housing needs must take priority over efforts to maintain exclusionary zoning under the guise of historic preservation.