10C
Date: June 9, 2026
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Historic Preservation Commission
Michelle Ramirez, Community Development Director
By: Kevin Joe, Planning Associate | [email protected] Subject: Historic Preservation Commission and Community Development - Supplemental Material #1 for Agenda Item 10C
DISCUSSION
Attached herewith for your consideration is a correspondence received after the item was prepared and distributed.
ATTACHMENT
1. Public Comment 6-8-26
1 Outlook
FW: Item 10C - Historic Preservation
From Santana, Danny <[email protected]>
Date Mon 6/8/2026 3:54 PM
To Ramirez, Michelle <[email protected]>; Martinez, Oscar <OMa [email protected]>; Joe, Kevin <[email protected]>
Cc Albarran, Elisa <[email protected]>; Chaparyan, Aram <[email protected]> FYI Michelle and Team. Thanks.
DANNY SANTANA
Assistant City Manager - Office of the City Manager
310-618-5880 I [email protected]
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From: Mike Griffiths >
Sent: Monday, June 8, 2026 3:39 PM
To: City Council <[email protected]>
Cc:
Subject: Item lOC - Historic Preservation
You don't often get email from Learn why this is imP.ortant Hello Mayor and Councilmembers!
I'm writing in regards to item 10C on the Tuesday June 9th City Council agenda. Specifically, in regards to Historic Preservation in Torrance. As not only one of your Historic Preservation Commissioners, but as someone who has firsthand experience with Historic Preservation , I wanted to share my thoughts on this item via this email, as I will not be attending the Council meeting in person. And hopefully this message will be included in the supplemental for this item.
The main issue at hand, the approval of the revised Historic Preservation Plan is very straightforward, and I suspect that you all will support this. It is a logical extension of the current plan, so I don't think it needs further discussion here.
However, there is a secondary issue that the Historic Preservation Commission unanimously agreed to move forward for your FUTURE consideration - that being a modification of the existing Historic Preservation ordinance to allow a Historic District to be formed with the consent of 60% of the property owners in the proposed district, instead of the current 100%. At the current 100% requirement , I can virtually guarantee that a Historic District will NEVER get approved in our City.
2 ATTACHMENT 1
Our current ordinance defining the process to create a Historic District was created in 2017, at a time when I was on the City Council.
Unfortunately, at that time, I was in the minority on the vote (I believe it was split 4-3 in support of the 100% requirement) to set a reasonable percentage for creating a Historic District. None of the current council was in office at that time for that vote and discussion, and I suspect that there would be a different result, especially, if proper education of the Council and residents was conducted to help people understand the details and benefits of creating Historic Districts. It has been 9 years, and to my knowledge, no Historic Districts have even been seriously proposed, once the organizers realized the virtually impossible task of getting 100% support from all property owners in the realm of a proposed district.
It is time to fix this problem by reconsidering this burdensome, and virtually impossible, restriction.
And here is a little firsthand experience for your hear: I am the owner of a 1928 ‘historic’ property In Altadena (in Unincorporated LA County). In around 2020, a group of property owners (myself included), decided to move forward to get a Historic District approved consisting of 77 residential properties.
The LA County requirement for a Historic District is to get approval of 50%+1
(not 100% as is current Torrance requirement), of property owners to approve the creation of a Historic District. Due to the pandemic, it took many years for the process to move forward, including educating the property owners involved and then voting on the decision to form or not form a Historic District. The vote by property owners resulted in the needed majority of property owners supporting the formation of the district, upon approval by the BOS. After many delays, including the massive fire in Altadena in January 2025, the LA County Board of Supervisors UNANIMOUSLY approved the creation of the VERY FIRST Historic District in Unincorporated Los Angeles County (Called Altadena Historic Highlands)! Reference: https://kathrynbarger.lacounty.gov/28841-2/
Pasadena, another Historic City situated just south of Altadena, has been approving Historic Districts in their City for a long time, and I have personally seen how those neighborhoods have transformed into vibrant neighborhoods, rejuvenating older, run-down (but historic) properties due to the protections provided by Historic District processes, and values of homes in these districts have soared, as people seek out purchasing historic properties in Historic Districts, knowing that the character of those neighborhoods is protected. Pasadena currently has 28 locally recognized Historic Districts, as well as 21 Nationally recognized Historic Districts! And
Pasadena’s threshold for property owners to consent to a Historic District is 51%. As I said earlier, sadly, Torrance has ZERO Historic Districts, yet there are MANY areas within Torrance, specifically in the Downtown Tract, that could likely form into a Historic District if we followed the consent requirements of LA County, Pasadena, or many other cities. It would be a great project for staff to research the Historic District consent percentage for other Cities in LA County.
I realize the process of getting educated and educating the affected residents is a big task, but not moving forward with that NOW is a mistake that will only end up costing us more of our history that will never come back. Let’s not wait another decade.
The Historic Preservation
Commission is the perfect vehicle to help with the public education and outreach. And most of this work, assuming you say YES to moving forward, will happen under the leadership of a new City Council. Please direct staf
f to begin the process of moving this issue forward.
Thank you for your consideration of this very important issue.
Mike Griffiths – Torrance Resident
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