Eric Rosa Real Estate

Arcadia’s new housing standards will have an immediate impact on neighborhoods

Note- As a realtor working in Arcadia I can attest the the new standards are already having a negative financial impact on tear-down property values. Let's see how over time values will be affected by the new standards which are the result of  so much community  "effort" and dialogue.  Eric Rosa, Realtor

 By Courtney Tompkins, The Pasadena Star-News

POSTED: 04/20/16, 7:13 PM PDT

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ARCADIA >> Several residential development projects sitting in the pipeline could be impacted when new housing standards take effect next month, officials said Tuesday.

With a little over 200 projects in various stages of planning as of March 31, Assistant City Manager Jason Kruckeberg said it’s likely that a number of them could be subject to the new zoning codes, which become law on May 20.

The new regulations are part of a comprehensive update to the city’s zoning codes that began nearly two years ago, in part, to fulfill goals laid out in the city’s general plan but also to address residents’ concernsover a controversial development trend known as “mansionization.” The hot-button issue involves demolishing older, smaller homes and replacing them with large ones that often dwarf surrounding dwellings.

Cities across the San Gabriel Valley have taken various approaches to address the issue, including implementing moratoriums on building and/or demolition of older homes, and adopting more stringent building regulations.

Included in Arcadia’s new standards is an element that adds a sliding-scale floor-area ratio for the first time in the city’s history. A floor-area ratio is a development tool that helps determine how large a home can be built on any given lot based on a percentage of the land. Talk of creating a floor-area ratio elicited heated debate on both sides of the issue, with some saying it would help control development and preserve neighborhood character and others saying it could hurt property values.

After very little discussion Tuesday, a rarity for this topic, the City Council voted unanimously to adopt the ordinance and move forward with the residential portion of the zoning code update.

Still, there were concerns about how the city would proceed with pending projects in light of the new regulations, which officials also discussed Tuesday.

Kruckeberg said projects that already have been approved through design review by May 20, either by city staff or various homeowners associations’ architectural review boards, will be grandfathered in under the current codes. Any project that has been issued a “notice of pending decision” by the city by that same deadline also would be processed under current regulations, according to a staff report.

“We felt that was a fair way to regulate the projects in the pipeline in that the majority of projects … would still be able to continue with those rules and we wouldn’t be changing the goal posts on them,” Kruckeberg said.

As of March 31, the city had 205 single-family projects in the pipeline, with 109 in design review. Of those 109, 47 have already been approved and 62 are still awaiting approval, Kruckeberg said.

In addition, there were 96 projects in plan check as of March 31. All of these projects will proceed under the current regulations.

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Councilman Roger Chandler said the intent is not only to be fair, but to avoid a rush of incomplete projects submitted for approval at the last minute.

All projects that have not made it through design review by the deadline would be subject to the new codes, Kruckeberg said.

“Anytime zoning is changed, there is often a bit of a rush to try to beat the clock,” he said. “We want to avoid those types of projects where folks are submitting a hastily drawn plan. We want to make sure these are well thought-out plans that meet the requirements.”