Workshop Ideas for Altadena's Future (Video)

County consultants held their second 'Altadena Community Visioning' Workshop on Wednesday, allowing community participants to review input from the first workshop and make suggestions for a draft report that will be released next month.

Turnout at the event was lower than the with around 70 to 80 people showing up Wednesday to discuss issues.

Participants divided into five groups to review community issues: People and Community, Town/District Centers, Mobility and Recreation, Neighborhoods, and Business Environment.

Each group had ideas identified in those categories from participants in the first workshop to review.  The full list of ideas, along with other documents from the process, will be made available on a new website set up by the county.

The draft report on community priorities will be released by consultants in May, and the community will have a chance to weigh in on the contents of the report on June 6.

After discussions, each group chose someone to tell the full meeting what they had come up with.  The above video shows some of the excerpts of those discussions.

Besides the ideas mentioned in the video, the following ideas were also mentioned as priorities for the county to look into:

• Coordinating the county bike plan for Altadena with Pasadena's bike plan and with other adjacent communities
• Completing the Altadena Crest Trail
• Allowing night access to the trail
• Better traffic enforcement on north-south streets
• Limiting overnight parking in some residential areas
• Possible regulations on leafblower noise
• Reducing regulations on sidewalk signs
• Convert vacant lots to dog parks or neighborhood hang-out spots
• Ease parking restrictions in commercial areas to bring in new businesses
• Updating signage styles on Lake Avenue
• Look into increasing light industrial zoning to bring in new jobs to Altadena
• Make safe walking areas
• Update Lincoln Avenue 
• Expand Charles White Park
• Eliminate styles standards to allow for originality for individual owners
• Preserve the Altadena Library
• Allow use of storefront church parking lots for business parking, since many are occupied only on weekends.

The purpose of the ' is to gather public input on what potential changes should be made to update Altadena codes, as well as take a broader look at what priorities county planners should have for Altadena's future.  That will include "future land use, economic developments, streetscape improvements, open space, safety, and preservation of local character."

The public input will be used to amend the Altadena Community Standards, which governs business and residential codes that are specific to Altadena.  But the input will also be used to look at bigger picture plans for Altadena in the future.