Friday, June 26, 2026

Pasadena School Board Overrides Its Own Consultant to Protect Existing Linda Vista Park

The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education on Thursday, June 25, 2026, named InSite Realty Advisers the preferred developer for the former Linda Vista Elementary School site and authorized negotiation of an exclusive negotiating agreement toward a proposed 99-year ground lease — then amended the action from the dais to require that the developer preserve the existing park in its current location and size, overruling the advice of the district’s own real estate consultant. 

The board approved Resolution No. 2895, which directs staff to negotiate an exclusive negotiating agreement, or ENA, with InSite Realty for the roughly 4.94-acre property at 1259 Linda Vista Ave. and declares the parcel exempt surplus land. 

Before the vote, Vice President Yarma Velázquez moved to attach a new Section 7 ordering that any agreement “shall require the proposed development to preserve the existing park footprint in its current location and size.” The motion was seconded and the resolution, as amended, passed. Board President Tina Fredericks presided. 

That condition runs directly counter to guidance from CBRE, the commercial real estate firm the district hired to market the site and run the bidding.

Asked from the dais whether the board could lock in the park now, CBRE’s representatives said doing so “would really limit what the developer could do” so early in the process and urged the board to route community concerns through the coming negotiation instead. 

Velázquez argued the surrounding neighborhood’s demand had not wavered. 

“We can have this conversation now or in three months, but the community has been consistent in saying” they want to keep the park, Velázquez said, contending that writing the requirement in now offered “our best chances of having a smoother process.” 

Two colleagues urged deference to the consultant. Trustee Jennifer Hall Lee said pinning down the park risked a worse result. 

“If we hem in the developer, we could get something subpar,” Hall Lee said, declining to back the amendment because the board “can possibly have something really fantastic there.” 

Trustee Kimberly Kenne questioned the project’s stated density and warned that requiring the park to remain exactly as it is “could make this deal not feasible” for the builder. 

“You’d be going against what this consultant has said to us, and we are responsible for the finances here,” Kenne said.

Trustee Michelle Richardson Bailey called the move premature and procedurally out of order, saying the board was “almost dooming this process before it even gets going,” and pressed colleagues to start negotiations while preserving the board’s leverage to reject the project later: if a final plan returns without the community’s priorities reflected,”that’s our opportunity to say no.” 

Trustee Scott Harden supported the park condition as “an anchor point” the board had the power to set, but asked for some flexibility on minor encroachment “if it makes sense for the overall development.” 

What the board did — and did not — do 

Trustees and CBRE repeatedly stressed that Thursday’s action authorizes negotiations only; it does not approve a ground lease or the developer’s conceptual site plan. 

Under the process described at the meeting, the district will negotiate an ENA — which must include a developer community-outreach plan — and bring it back to the board for approval. The project would then enter the city of Pasadena’s entitlement and California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, review before a final ground lease returns to the board for a separate vote. 

CBRE estimated the full sequence is “likely to take a year or longer.”

The money at stake 

CBRE singled out InSite Realty from a field of five best-and-final bidders, citing a proposal it described as low-density detached single-family homes — about 32 units at roughly 6.5 homes per acre on lots averaging about 8,000 square feet — backed by institutional capital. 

InSite’s offer carries a starting annual ground rent of $575,000, escalating annually with the Los Angeles County Consumer Price Index, with a 2% floor and a 3.5% ceiling. Using a 2.75% average, CBRE projected the lease would generate about $285 million for the district over its 99-year term — a figure the firm called consistent with the high end of its pre-bid valuation. 

The deal also includes a 90-day feasibility period and a $1 million deposit — terms that let InSite walk away if its due diligence, including the new park requirement, shows the numbers don’t work. 

At least one competing bid offered more annual income: a proposed 80- to 110-unit senior, memory and assisted-care facility from the Lalique/Flatiron/Anthem group listed $600,000 a year. 

Resident Carly Whitney, who urged the board to reject the InSite plan, said the senior-care alternative “offered higher annual revenue” and would create local jobs, while the chosen proposal “generates neither jobs nor the greatest financial return.”

A packed room defends ‘the heartbeat of our community’ 

Public comment ran long and overwhelmingly favored keeping the park where it is. 

Eric Kern, president of the Linda Vista Annandale Association, said the neighborhood was encouraged to see the project advancing but listed preservation of the park as its first concern. 

Resident after resident described the space as central to neighborhood life. 

Eight-year-old Ila Hill told trustees: “Please don’t take our park. It is the best park in the world.” 

Speakers raised public-safety and design objections beyond the park itself. One resident warned the site sits in a high fire-hazard zone and that Bryant Street “is one of the main exit routes,” cautioning that adding 32 homes could choke evacuation. 

Another resident noted the proposal would displace a preschool now leasing space on the site “but provides no transitional plan” for those families. 

Others objected to traffic and density, disputed the developer’s “low density” framing, and questioned whether the design accounts for the natural depression residents call “the bowl,” a graded former creek bed they say gives the park its enclosure and shade.

Mature trees drew repeated warnings, tying the Linda Vista decision to the district’s broader, contested tree-removal and soil-remediation efforts. A former Pasadena city forester who wrote the city’s original tree ordinance testified that the project — like other district sites — must comply with Pasadena’s tree protection ordinance, and several speakers said the plan’s “like for like” park-replacement claim could not be squared with replacing established trees. 

CBRE and trustees responded that no trees are slated for removal under the conceptual plan and that tree, park, density and design questions would all be worked out during the ENA and city entitlement phases. 

The former school has sat largely vacant for roughly two decades, used only under a joint-use arrangement with the city and a small preschool lease. District leaders have said monetizing surplus property is part of their response to declining enrollment, competition from charter and private schools and a shortage of affordable housing.