Pasadena's city council has three weeks to act before a new state law forces taller apartment buildings near its Metro A Line stations — and a vote just made next door in Altadena shows what's at stake if it doesn't.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted June 9 to create the county's first-ever historic district, granting 77 homes in Altadena's Historic Highlands neighborhood formal protection from demolition and incompatible redevelopment. The homes, mostly Craftsman, Spanish Colonial Revival, and Tudor residences built in the 1920s on former orange grove land, sit just blocks from Pasadena's northern border.
For Pasadena residents, the timing matters as much as the designation itself. Senate Bill 79, the state's new transit-oriented housing density law, takes effect Wednesday, July 1, and will force cities across Los Angeles County to approve taller apartment and condo buildings near rail stops, overriding local zoning along the way. The law covers an estimated 150 transit stops countywide, including all six of Pasadena's Transit Oriented Development zones along the Metro A Line.
Pasadena's city council took up the fight at its May 18 meeting, considering an urgency ordinance that would delay SB 79's reach into locally designated historic resources within a half-mile of A Line stations. If passed, it would shield neighborhoods that share the same architectural DNA, and the same redevelopment pressure, as the homes Altadena just protected.
The stakes are not hypothetical. A report by Strategic Actions for a Just Economy found that 49 percent of Altadena properties sold between February and July 2025 were purchased by investors, a wave of speculative buying that accelerated after the January 2025 Eaton Fire destroyed more than 9,400 structures and killed at least 19 people. The Historic Highlands neighborhood itself was untouched by the fire, but the destruction around it has sharpened fears across the area that vulnerable, character-defining neighborhoods could be bought up and redeveloped before residents have a say.
Pasadena's two state representatives are already working the other end of the problem. State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez and assembly member John Harabedian, both Pasadena Democrats, are backing SB 1090, the Keep Altadena Lands in Altadena Hands Act, which would impose a five-year moratorium on lot-splitting laws in Altadena. Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who introduced the Historic Highlands ordinance, has also thrown her support behind the bill.
"By formally recognizing the Historic Highlands as the County's first historic district, we are setting a precedent for celebrating the history embedded in our unincorporated communities," Barger said at the June 9 meeting.
More than half of the affected property owners supported the designation, clearing the county's threshold for consideration, and it received recommendations from both the Historical Landmarks and Records Commission and the Regional Planning Commission before reaching the full board. The district becomes legally enforceable Thursday, July 9, when it enters the County Register and property owners receive formal notification.
What happens in Altadena now sits as a marker for what Pasadena's council is racing to prevent, or replicate, before the state's new law takes hold.
