[ACT] Star News on Hahamongna Annex plan

[Meb787 at aol.com]

Pasadena Star-News

City says it has no plans to build a road and  parking structure in 
Hahamonga
By Dan Abendschein, Staff  Writer
Posted: 05/20/2009 05:17:00 PM PDT

PASADENA - An old conflict  about a proposed road and a 1,200-car parking 
garage in the Hahamonga  Watershed Park has come into focus again for 
residents concerned about new  plans for the area.

Those concerns are centered on a new amendment to the  city's plans for 
the area, which mentions a 50-foot-wide access road in the  northern area 
of the park. Old planning documents still refer to a parking  garage and a 
road, even though the city dropped the two items in 2003, after  residents 
protested.

After more protests at a meeting last week, city  staff Tuesday night told 
residents at a meeting of the city's Environmental  Advisory Committee 
that the inclusion of the garage and road in the new plan  was an 
oversight and would be fixed.

"The roadway will be removed  from the plan's addendum," said Theresa 
Fuentes, of the City Attorney's  Office. "The plan will be edited for 
removal of the parking  garage."

Several residents still seemed mistrustful of the city's  long-term 
intentions for the park.

"I still don't think that the city  understands what we want," said Mary 
Berrie, a La Canada resident, who has  been tracking city plans for the 
park for over a decade. "We don't want a  city park...We want to have a 
unique wilderness park."

Barry and  others raised concerns about a 30-foot bike and horse trail 
that the city  described as a "greenway" but would run along the same 
location as the  access road that would connect to a parking lot at
Advertisement
the Jet  Propulsion Laboratory. In previous plans, the city had wanted to 
use that  lot for overflow parking for events at Hahamonga.

The 1,300-acre park is  a former rock quarry that now holds a series of 
short trails, some regrown  natural areas, a natural area along the Arroyo 
Seco, and a small sports and  field area that includes a Frisbee golf 
course.

Past proposals for  the area have included the parking garage, new sports 
fields, and other  facilities that open-space advocates have opposed. New 
concerns arose over  the future of the park in January, when the city 
signed a new lease with JPL  that ensured that if a new road to JPL 
parking lots is built in the future,  the city would have access to the 
road and the lots.

City officials  said at the time that they were only covering their bases 
in case plans for  the park change, and that no immediate plans to build 
the road  exist.

Some speakers at Wednesday's meetings still raised concerns that  the 
proposed greenway could end up being converted into an access  road.

They also thought the proposed 30-foot width for the trail would be  too 
much for the natural area, and residents also disputed the need to build  
separate lanes for bikers and horseback riders, which would add to the  
trail's width.

"We can all get along on a trail that isn't so wide,"  said Lori Paul. 
"Thirty feet is a greenway freeway."

The city could  end up needing to remove up to 19 trees in the area to 
build the  trail.

The amended plan now goes to the council for approval, sometime in  the 
next few months.

dan.abendschein at sgvn.com

(626) 962-8811,  Ext. 4451 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.fourpalms.org/pipermail/act/attachments/20090521/60812a90/attachment.html