Property Owners Hopping in Monrovia

Hopping mad that is. Or at least somewhat discomfited anyway. It seems that local property owners are worried about the numbers of folks who will be moving into the urban village to be built around the Gold Line station at Myrtle.

As the Sierra Madre Weekly notes:

A few of the issues that were brought up during the meeting [last Monday night] include the congestion on Myrtle Avenue near the 210 freeway, traffic safety around the city including at Santa Fe Middle School, and the bike friendliness of the roads.

But lest you think these concerns are trivial, take a step back and consider the size of the project we are talking about. Recall that the largest development in Pasadena history is around 1,000 units. By comparison, the homey little village down by the freeway could have as many as 3,800 units. And roughly 1 million sqaure feet of office and retail space. Still not convinced this is a big deal? The plans call for up to 10,000 new parking spaces. I'm not even sure there are 10,000 people living in Monrovia (okay, the population is almost 37,000, but you get my point).

So, the concerns raised by those "local property owners?" They're starting to sound a lot more reasonable. Factor in growing traffic on the 210, the fact that the SGV got the shaft in transportation funding, and the limitations of light rail to substantively impact traffic volume, and you could create a local traffic monster. No one's arguing that development should be halted across the board, but the wisdom of adding nearly 4,000 units to Monrovia should be called into question.

UPDATE:

Forgot to mention that you can find the new General Plan for Monrovia
here (Beware! PDF!), thanks to Living in Monrovia.