Residents and advocates urge Duarte council to postpone Crestfield Townhomes hearing, cite CEQA, Surplus Land and Brown Act concerns

Several residents and community representatives urged the Duarte City Council to postpone an upcoming hearing on the Crestfield Townhomes proposal and to recirculate its environmental review, citing procedural notice and statutory claims and warning of potential litigation.

Travis Patterson, speaking on behalf of neighbors in the Rancho Duarte community, urged the council to vote no on rezoning for the project and said the developer had misled residents about earlier plans for the Rancho Duarte Golf Course and about the nature of the housing now proposed. “This is an apartment complex,” he said, criticizing developer outreach that used the term “townhomes” and alleging the project would not create homeownership opportunities. Patterson said the project is being pitched as housing for City of Hope employees and accused the city and developer of privileging the developer through repeated entitlements.

Samuel Brown Vasquez, identifying himself as representing a coalition opposing the development, asked the council to postpone the Sept. 23 hearing until his Brown Act claim is adjudicated. He alleged the planning commission’s hearing lacked Spanish-language notice and omitted a valid email for public participation; he said those omissions excluded portions of the community and thus violated the Brown Act’s requirement for full access to public meetings. Brown Vasquez also argued the project’s environmental impact report (EIR) must be recirculated under CEQA because the analysis, he said, failed to address displacement pressures, loss of green space and climate impacts; he referenced case law and statutes, including the Naylor Act and the Surplus Land Act, and said the 99‑year lease for the site would constitute a disposition of land requiring priority offers for parks or affordable housing under the Surplus Land Act.

Brown Vasquez also asserted conflict-of-interest allegations and said he had forwarded a complaint alleging council member Finley’s real-estate interests create a financial entanglement under the Political Reform Act. He told the council his coalition is prepared to litigate to secure what he described as full compliance with the law.

City staff and the council did not take action on the public comments at this meeting. The speakers asked the council to delay action on Sept. 23 and to recirculate environmental analysis; no council response or vote on those requests was recorded in the transcript excerpt.