Athletic Fields
or Nature
at Hahamongna?
See What Pasadenans Really Think
Letters to
Mayor Bogaard
Soccer Fields in a Rare Streamzone
Hahamongna is the most environmentally sensitive site in the Arroyo Seco and in our region, yet plans are moving forward to construct athletic fields, parking lots, roads and other intrusions in the middle of this rare habitat zone.
In 2003 the Pasadena City Council approved the Hahamongna Master Plan, which included several athletic fields, roads and other facilities in the middle of the Hahamongna basin. The plan adopted by the City Council at 1 am shattered a carefuly crafted consensus that had been worked out by an extensive community planning effort that had gone on for six years. At the behest of one council member and without staff, cost or environmental review, another massive field was plopped in the midst of a wetlands area on the edge of the Arroyo Seco streamzone. The late night decision went far beyond the community consensus and the analysis in the environmental impact report that the Pasadena Council had adopted the year before.
The current proposal, now being developed by Pasadena staff, would build a massive multi-purpose athletic field and a parking lot in the middle of the basin just east of the current Oak Grove field. This enormous patch of grass and asphalt would be ironically dubbed "Sycamore Field." The midnight field added by the Council approving the Hahamongna Master Plan in 2003, was eliminated by Council Action on July 12, 2010. At that meeting, despite the eloquent pleas of forty local resident, the Council instructed Pasadena staff to forge ahead with the "Sycamore Field" and parking lot. The field would be built on a constructed pad raised from the streambed by 23 feet to prevent occasional flooding, thus destroying a large swath of wetlands and riparian habitat.
The partial victory achieved last summer only strengthened the resolve of the Hahamongna advocates to preserve the natural richness of Hahamongna.