Two Problem Properties in Pasadena
Ahhh, beautiful Pasadena...home to picture-perfect Craftsman houses, old-growth oak trees, Caltech, the original Trader Joe’s…and, unfortunately, two neighboring houses that have been empty for a long time.
Father Dylan Littlefield (who also took the picture above) reached out to me about two side-by-side houses just above the 210, near the corner of Maple and Marengo Streets. There was a two-alarm fire early Friday morning, affecting both houses.
I checked for code compliance issues. 398 Townsend Place has a case under investigation for an “unsecure vacant property”. Curiously, the linked map has 397 Townsend Place mapped, not 398. Comments on a few articles about the fire suggest that the houses have been empty for years.
How does this kind of neglect happen in Pasadena, which (let’s be honest) has significantly better management than Los Angeles?
In Father Dylan’s words, “This is a historically minority neighborhood, with a lot of social issues. It’s often overlooked until there is an emergency.”
It shouldn’t take a two-alarm fire to draw attention to any of this.
How can this happen in Pasadena? I live in what used to be a minority district not far from that fire and we don't get the same service as Bungalow Heaven. There is hoarder's home next door that's a fire hazard, it's ready to blow an any moment. It's had years of code complaints from the neighborhood without effective changes, the most recent code complaint was soon after the fire in Jan, and still nothing has happened. Pasadena has its priorities. Energy is spent only where important people will notice.