CLAREMONT >> Pomona College’s plan to build a new art museum on the outskirts of the Downtown Village has divided the Mayberry-like town.
It has some — who normally boast the hometown consortium of colleges as the Ivy League of the West — opposed to moving a Victorian home on school property in the 200 block of College Avenue to make way for a modern building. Residents say the college’s request is another case of institutional boundaries continuing to expand, dubbed locally as “college creep,” impacting the character of the neighborhood where the city’s founding fathers first lived.
“What Pomona College is proposing threatens to alter the scale, use and ease of the village,” said David Cressy, who lives only a couple hundred yards from Pomona College. To him, it seems as though the campus is getting bigger and closer.
Now the City Council must vote on a crucial component of the development: a zone change that could allow Pomona College to build the museum next to homes.
If the council goes through with redesignation — and ultimately the removal of the Renwick House — Cressy said it would be “destructive to the identity and cohesiveness” of College Avenue.
“What we’re engaged in is the possible rezoning and alteration, in perpetuity, of the balance between institutional, commercial and residential sectors of Claremont,” he said.
Pomona College has requested the zone change from medium-density residential to institutional/educational so it may fulfill Pomona College’s 2015 master plan, not yet approved. The master plan envisions a new Museum of Art building on the subject property.
The 1900 late-period Queen Anne home was built for Helen Goodwin Renwick, one of Pomona’s early philanthropists. The house is currently used for administrative purposes.
David Oxtoby, Pomona College’s president, said the university carefully considered and reviewed several sites for the new museum.
“In these considerations, we were guided by the academic needs of our students,” he said. “As experts in higher education, we understand the adjacency and interaction and programming requirements of campus planning; it is more than simply deciding where a building would physically fit.”
The plan for the museum is still in the concept stage, but Oxtoby said building the museum on College and Bonita avenues meets the needs of a 21st-century teaching museum, which is critical to the college’s mission. To make way for it, Renwick House would then move to Second Street and College. The cottages on the property would be demolished.
The controversy has led school officials to post a fact-versus-rumor information sheet on its website.
Oxtoby refuted the claims of “college creep,” saying there’s a false narrative about a border between the campuses and the village. The city and colleges have grown together.
“We are inseparable,” he said, adding there’s open and meaningful flow of activity of people through the campuses, the civic core and the downtown shops.
For Oxtoby, the colleges and the city have contributed to each other’s attraction and success for more than 125 years.
A city error
The need for a zone change — and the controversy that surrounds it — comes because of a clerical error the planning department staffers have acknowledged they made.
The property was designated institutional, dating back to 1923, Oxtoby said. Over the years, the city has designated it from “semi-public,” in 1969 and 1979 to “institutional” in 2006, when the land use document was updated.
But staff never made the change, said Brian Desatnik, Claremont’s director of Community Development.
Pomona College believes there’s an obligation on the city’s part to bring these designations into conformity with the existing general plan filed with the state.
“There was an oversight of Claremont properties that has now come to light,” Oxtoby said. “This parcel should have been included in the 2007 corrective zoning action because its designation, as filed with the state of California, is institutional/educational rather than residential.”
Earlier this month, Oxtoby asked an ad hoc committee whose sole purpose is to discuss the zoning snafu to “imagine together a facility that examines the interconnectedness that has made Claremont a nationally recognized leader in the arts, one of the most desirable communities to live, work and get an education, raise a family and retire.”
Mayor Sam Pedroza appointed the committee after the City Council failed to achieve the super majority vote needed to approve the zone change at its April 12 meeting.
The ad hoc committee — which included council members Larry Schroeder and Joe Lyons and planning commissioners K.M. Williamson and Leigh Anne Jones — at its May 3 meeting were also split on whether to change the zoning.
The committee’s inability to reach a consensus can, by default, allow the zone change to occur. The item now goes back to the council for a vote May 24, but this time around, it only needs a simple majority to pass.
If it doesn’t pass this time, Pomona College will have to change its master plan, either moving the museum to another spot on campus with the correct zoning or abandoning the project altogether.
Historic landmark
Claremont Heritage, a preservation group opposed to the college’s plans, last year launched an effort to add the Renwick House to the National Register of Historic Places. On April 18, the State Historical Resources Commission unanimously agreed to list the house to the state register, said Claremont Heritage executive director David Shearer.
The property has now been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, he said.
“It’s something we’ve wanted to do,” Shearer said.
The group was spurred to action after reading a report Pomona College released last year that said the home may not be eligible for the national register. That finding, Shearer said, was based on an assessment that occurred in the 1990s.
“We were going to submit all the homes on College Avenue, but when the report came out we just fast-tracked it,” he said.
Shearer said Claremont Heritage did inform the city and Pomona College about its plans to send the nomination.
It is no secret the nonprofit organization has written letters and made public comments opposed to the change. In fact, Shearer said, Claremont Heritage has offered the college numerous options for other sites, as well as suggesting that the Renwick House become a museum to highlight the philanthropist after whom it is named.
Denise Spooner was one of the residents who traveled up to Sacramento last month to show her support for the historical designation. She questioned how much Pomona College valued the Renwick house after it asked the state historic commission to delay its hearing.
Spooner hopes the designation will protect the home and city from “college creep,” an idea she said some in the city find funny. Since since 1985, the Claremont colleges have taken over or demolished 135 structures, Spooner said, referring to a Planning Commission report from last year.
Karen L. Sisson, vice president and treasurer of Pomona College, acknowledged the university asked for a delay but only in an attempt to work with those who were concerned about the Queen Anne home.
“We could have filed a letter of opposition, which would have automatically stopped the designation,” she said.
All for naught?
In the end, clinching a place on the national register doesn’t impact plans for the art museum.
“There’s nothing that prohibits the move of this house, and there is nothing that automatically changes the designation of the historic nature of this home — if it were to stay or if it were to move,” said City Manager Tony Ramos.
But Shearer said it was never the plan of Claremont Heritage to stall the development of the museum.
“What is most important is it is identified as a historic site,” he said. “Claremont Heritage is not trying to stand in the way of progress — we want to work together with the college to strengthen our heritage. That’s what makes this city an attraction to the people who come to Claremont.”
