Altadena residents gather for the first of three "visioning workshops" on April 4, 2012 at the Loma Alta Park gymnasium.
by Timothy Rutt
About 130 Altadena residents gathered for the first of three Altadena Community Visioning Workshops Wednesday night at the Loma Alta Park gymnasium.
Susan Harden, vice-president for planning and design at RBF Consulting, the county’s consultant for the project, told those gathered that the workshops were intended to “paint a vivid and positive picture of the future” -- not to create an action plan, but a starting point for action.
While the process was not to talk about specific changes to the Community Standards District, which the county want to update, such changes may be included, Harden said.
The process was very simple: on Post-it notes, attendees were to write three ideas about the “treasures of Altadena”: the things they value most about living here. The notes then went together on a section of the wall where they were sorted into general themes by RBF staffers.
Treasures included diversity, architecture, local businesses, the small town sense of community, nature and the mountains, and the library.
This was followed by asking those attending to write “three challenges” of living in Altadena, and “three visions” of what people wanted in the future. These notes also went through the same sorting process.
Then it was broken down into general topic areas, a topic area was assigned to a table, and small groups would gather at the table where the conversation most interested them to refine the ideas further.
Topic tables included such areas as nature, diversity, safety, regulation/governance, neighborhood enhancement, and streets and mobility.
The biggest buzz was around the “New Business” table, which was standing room only as residents -- many of them local businesspeople -- talked about the problems of overregulation and code enforcement stifiling businesses expanding or moving into the area. Eventually, that was broken into two tables.
The results and Powerpoint presentation are to go up on the Altadena Town Council website. The next step will be another visioning workshop on April 25. The results of the workshops will become a draft vision report to be completed in May with a final workshop in June to get feedback on the draft report.
In the meantime, Harden encouraged people who had other thoughts -- or who were not able to attend the meeting -- to comment in our informal Altadenablog survey.
