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2004 – Joined forces with the Old Pasadena Management District, Pasadena Heritage and others to ensure that the new Central District Specific Plan would not “lead to bad development of the city’s historic downtown for the next decade, with too little park land and too much residential development.” 

2012 – WPRA started monitoring City planning for Central District General Plan by advocating that change must be harmonized to preserve Pasadena’s historic character and environment.

2016 – The City presented its Draft Environmental Report for the rehabilitation of the YWCA and proposed Kimpton Hotel in the Civic Center. The majority of Pasadena residents and city planners advocated the smallest hotel foot print with the least story height and the deepest setback from Garfield Avenue. Kimpton pressed for the largest capacity of rooms it could get.

The WPRA strongly pressed the City Council to allow an adequate and early evening comment period for public debate regarding the Civic Center YWCA/Kimpton Hotel project.

WPRA’s research revealed the original Kimpton Hotel project had been converted in 2015 to a private equity investment instrument intended for resale within five to seven years. The WPRA opposed the selected project design for 185 rooms with a 30 to 40 foot setback from Garfield Avenue. 

2017 – The WPRA contributed to the Pasadena Civic Center Coalition Legal Fund fighting the approved large scale, six-story Civic Center hotel project which would replace most of the open park-like space opposite City Hall.

The City Council voted unanimously to suspend the proposed YWCA/Kimpton Hotel project and instead, created a citizen task force to find a more acceptable solution for rehabilitating the YWCA and developing the Civic Center as an entire unit.

A WPRA Board Member became part of the Civic Center Task Force and conveyed the WPRA’s desired planning guidelines within the committee meetings. WPRA board members also submitted letters and spoke at these meetings within the comment periods.

2018 – The WPRA continued to work with the Civic Center Task Force and after its final meeting, the Task Force provided City Council with its recommendations. The City restarted the Civic Center development project with another round of request for proposals.

2020 – WPRA continues to monitor the City’s development for the YWCA and the Department of Water and Power lot, now designated for an affordable housing complex. WPRA still opposes the 45 setback from Garfield and continues to support the Civic Center Coalition’s CEQA suit against the City to maintain 107 foot setback of open space opposite City Hall.

2003 – The WPRAstarted tracking the NFL’s desire to be a tenant of the Rose Bowl. WPRA noted that City Council had authorized the Rose Bowl Operating Committee to explore the possibility of an NFL team becoming a tenant of the Rose Bowl, and provided a list of parameters the City should seek in its negotiations; expressed concern that the NFL was playing a “bait and switch” with Pasadena —baiting us “with an initial plan that was sensitive to the stadium’s historic nature, and then switching by subsequently pushing cost-cutting at the expense of the very historic aspects the prior plan preserved.”

2004 – The WPRA continued to express “major concerns” about the potential impact of the NFL on the Central Arroyo and the Rose Bowl Stadium. 

2005 – WPRA surveyed West Pasadena citizens’ attitudes about the NFL leasing the Rose Bowl. Nearly 60% were totally against the idea while only 10% favored it. Then the WPRA issued a plea for help and contributions to oppose the NFL lease of the Rose Bowl.

Issued a plea for help and contributions to oppose the NFL lease of the Rose Bowl.

2006 – WPRA expressed disappointment that although the citizens of Pasadena and City Council (in 2005) had rejected the idea of an NFL team occupying the Rose Bowl, three councilmembers had sponsored a ballot initiative to raise the issue again.

WPRA participated to defeat the NFL in the Rose Bowl ballot initiative.

2008 – WPRA received a donation from Pasadena First, the lead organization in the successful effort to defeat the 2006 ballot initiative about the NFL in the Rose Bowl. Pasadena First hailed the WPRA as “an early and enthusiastic supporter and one of the first major contributors to the anti-NFL effort.”

2011 – The WPRA acknowledged significant reservations about temporary use of the Rose Bowl by the NFL and agreed to take a survey.

2012 – WPRA conducted the survey of area residents about the possibility of an NFL team temporarily leasing the Rose Bowl Stadium until its permanent new stadium can be built: 43% were against the idea under any condition; 37% would consider it if certain conditions were met; 19% expressed unconditional approval of the idea. The WPRA publically opposed the temporary use of the Rose Bowl by the NFL and supported other neighborhood organizations’ lawsuit to legally challenge the City Council’s certification of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) related to the potential temporary lease of the Rose Bowl by an NFL team. 

2013 – The WPRA helped fund the legal action against the City for certifying the EIR which inadequately addressed neighborhood impacts if the NFL temporarily leases the Rose Bowl. The NFL never did gain access to the Rose Bowl.

2016 – Having prevented the NFL’s attempt to convince the City to allow it a temporary lease, 

WPRA continued to monitor the rising number of other Rose Bowl events and their impacts to the surrounding neighborhoods.

1992 – WPRA interviewed Mike Snyder, assistant director of public affairs for the World Wide Church of God about selling its Ambassador College property for future development.

1999 – The WPRA urged residents to participate in the planning process for Legacy Partners which purchased the 50-acre former Ambassador College property from the World Wide Church of God for an estimated $59 million. It planned to build 1,943 units on the West campus and the East campus.

2002 – WPRA categorically opposed the Legacy Project’s high density housing proposal, even when the developer reduced the projected units from 1,943 to 1,727.

Surveyed San Rafael area residents to identify their top concerns: overdevelopment in West Pasadena (i.e., the Legacy Project) and the growing traffic problem.

To help mitigate congestion around the proposed Ambassador Campus Development Plan (Legacy Project), the WPRA retained a traffic consultant to conduct an independent professional analysis of traffic impact out of concern that the proposal was so large it would increase the number housing units in the WPRA service area by 40%. Consequently, Legacy withdrew from the Project.

2003 – WPRA continued to address the Ambassador West Campus proposal by conducting another survey among residents of the WPRA service area and adopting a position about a reduced density and traffic congestion.

The WPRA adopted principles for the development of the Ambassador West Campus, stipulating: lower density, restricted height, compatibility and controlled traffic requirements.

2004 – Continued opposing the Worldwide Church of God campus development and announced that the church had sold five single-family homes on the Ambassador College West campus to private individuals (after the homes had been declared City Landmarks), sold the East campus to Sares-Regis Group for development, and submitted its own plan for the West campus, which included demolition of Ambassador Auditorium and construction of 696 housing units.

2005 – Opposed the Sares-Regis’ plan to construct 829 multi-family units and 30,000 square feet of retail/commercial development in the Ambassador College East campus.

2006 – After reviewing the Draft Environmental Report, the WPRA continued to express concerns over the density of the Sares-Regis proposal to develop the Ambassador East and West campus projects, questioning the validity of the draft environmental impact statement and challenging the idea that the so-called “urban village” project was consistent with the General Plan and the Central District Specific Plan.

2007 – The WPRA continued to track the Ambassador West Project as developers changed, announcing that Standard Pacific Homes had pulled out of the Ambassador West project, purchased from the Worldwide Church of God by a consortium of investors headed by developer Dorn Platz.

2008 – Continued to track the Ambassador West Project as developers changed again. Announced that Dorn Platz had withdrawn from the Ambassador West project. Also noted that ACP Properties and Ambassador Acquisition Coalition Partners II had  defaulted on a $44 million loan and gone into receivership.

2012 – The WPRA maintained its monitoring of the Ambassador West Project as developers changed once more – Arroyo Realty withdrew from the project, City Ventures started construction on first ten homes along Del Mar.

2013 – WPRA continued its oversight of the Ambassador Campus construction beyond the completion of the first ten units along Del Mar.

2014 – WPRA continued to consult with Ambassador Gardens East project manager as the design moved forward for lower campus and what would become the west campus named the “Grove” and “Jaimeson Place”.

1989 – The WPRA drew attention to the revival of the extended Long Beach Freeway campaign, now referred to as the SR-710 “closing the gap” freeway.

1991 – The WPRA sponsored a Freeway Forum focusing on 710 Freeway Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) and the 25-year-old freeway plan. At this time, the City was supporting the closing of the 710 gap with a freeway through Pasadena and South Pasadena. The WPRA Board secured an independent traffic consultant to provide an independent perspective on the impacts of the proposed project.

1992 – In response to the concerns voiced during the June, 1991 WPRA Forum on traffic issues and the 710 Freeway, the Pasadena Department of Public Works commissioned a traffic circulation study of certain residential and commercial streets in the Southwest Pasadena area. 

WPRA strongly advocated that commuter north-south traffic on Orange Grove be addressed with factual statistics.

1993 –The WPRA initiated the Southwest Pasadena Traffic Study sought realistic methods to manage and “diffuse” traffic in areas that are overburdened by commuter traffic, especially feeding into the Pasadena Freeway and traffic exiting the end of the 710 “stump” at California.

2001 – WPRA reported the results of a city-wide election regarding the proposed 710 freeway extension. West Pasadenans bucked the city vote by opposing winning Measure A (which established the City’s official position as “in favor” of the extension) and by supporting losing Measure C (which would have mandated a city-wide traffic and transportation study).

2002 – The WPRA supported efforts of West Pasadena residents who lease homes from Caltrans along the 710 corridor to form the “Caltran Tenants of the 710 Corridor”.

2012 – WPRA publically ramped up its full scale opposition to the proposed SR710 freeway tunnels with an alert to the community stating that Metro was pushing a predetermined agenda with misleading information.

2013 – WPRA continued to publically explain through its newsletters how Metro’s proposed SR710 tunnel project was unfeasible to build and would not ease neighborhood traffic congestion. 

2014 – Regarding Metro’s presumed intention to close the SR-710 gap with tunnels, the WPRA committed to further independent analysis of all the elements of the plan that could negatively and uniquely impact Pasadena.

2015 – WPRA increased its vigilance of opposition against the proposed SR-710 tunnel alternative by devoting almost the entire winter publication of WPRA’s The News for public awareness and asking for additional funding to fight the tunnels project and creating an independent expert response team.

WPRA analysis found the SR-710 Draft Environmental Report grossly inadequate. The WPRA response team believed the report showed clear bias in favor of the tunnel alternative.

2016 – The WPRA continued to alert the public about the adverse environmental impacts caused by the future tunnel.

WPRA supported the Connecting Pasadena Project which created an urban development design which would replace the North SR 710 stub dug deep into the ground for the proposed freeway or tunnels intended to “close the gap.”

2017 – WPRA celebrated LA Metro’s Board’s unanimous vote against the SR710 tunnel alternative and its selection of the Transportation System Management/Transportation Demand Management (TSM/TDM) alternative.

2018 – In lieu of the rejected tunnel alternative, WPRA supported all of Metro’s proposed mobility improvements except the closure of the 134/210 on and off ramps.

WPRA urged City Council to cite Caltrans for code violations and call out Caltrans’ unethical tactics toward the current Caltrans 710 corridor property renters and buyers.

WPRA hired counsel in the advent that WPRA and other stakeholders needed to sue Caltrans to finally stop any potential movement to reinitiating the tunnel alternative project.

2019 – Caltrans dropped the tunnel alternative entirely from future development. In view of the victory, WPRA released its legal counsel.