by Timothy Rutt
Not much action, but lots of information items at Tuesday night’s town council meeting:
Taking the of-fence-ive: The latest code-bombing target: there are over 1,500 front yard fences in Altadena that are more than three and a half feet high and violate county codes, and it was determined that the majority of them were not legally permitted. The solution for homeowners: remove them, or apply for a conditional use permit. Cost: more than $8,000 -- more than the fence.
Town council chair Sandra Thomas shared a letter from Supervisor Micheal D. Antonovich giving this information to the council. Antonovich has asked regional planning authorities to hold off enforcing this regulation until an invesigation is done. Right now, Thomas said, there’s nothing to do about it. The county has hired a consultant to work to update the community stndards district that covers Altadena, so it’s now a waiting game to see what will happen.
Arroyo Pacific, again: The Arroyo Pacific Academy -- the Arcadia private school that wants to open a campus on Palm Street, over strong neighborhood opposition -- was asking for a second bite of the apple. The Altadena Land Use Committee and Town Councl both turned down APA President Philip Clarke’s request to open a second campus on Palm earlier this year. Clarke requested a joint meeting of the Land Use Committee and the Council to clear up misconceptions about the project and discuss proposed changes to the project as originally submitted. Thomas said that over 300 letters had come in on the issue in the past few days on the project.
The council said that they were willing to listen, but opted not to call a special joint meeting -- they want the school to follow the regular procedure which people are familiar with: land use, then council.
Street light improvement district: There will be a community planning meeting at the Altadena Community Center on Dec. 7 to talk about a proposed street lighting project (replacing lights) in several eastern neighborhoods.
