For about a year now, Courtney Weil has been trying to renovate her historic property in the Singer Park neighborhood of Pasadena, hoping to make it her dream home.
In that time, Weil said her St John Avenue home — which sits across from one of the dozens of Pasadena’s vacant, Caltrans-owned properties once in the footprint of the now-nixed 710 freeway extension — has been broken into twice and attracts countless passersby peering into her windows each day.
Weil believes the behavior is encouraged by the state of these vacant homes, which have been left to languish for decades even before the freeway project was finally officially ruled out in 2019. She said the properties, mostly along St John and Pasadena avenues, have overgrown yards and generally look derelict, obstructing the sidewalk in some places.
“The whole neighborhood looks abandoned,” Weil said. “At this point, I don’t trust the city or the state to do anything about this. It’s clear, we’re at the absolute bottom of everybody’s priority list.”
This week residents like Weil living around the freeway “stub” area got one step closer to some conclusion, as the Pasadena City Council approved two items that mark subtle progress in getting those homes back from the state and resold for affordable housing.
On Monday, Oct. 30, the council approved a not-to-exceed $237,000 contract with American Global Security and a not-to-exceed $262,500 contract with Scotland Yard Home Inspection company in preparation to buy 17 properties Caltrans offered to sell to the city earlier this year.
The council was also set to vote on awarding three contracts for broker listing services to help resell the properties — the first cohort of homes the city is set to receive through SB 959, which compels Caltrans to sell vacant Pasadena properties in the stub area back to the city at their original purchase price.
However, that item was held to their council’s Nov. 13 meeting. According to City…
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