Rosarie Mata, who has lived in the path of the 710 in a Caltrans home for 25 years with her parents, siblings and children and seen on Friday, March 29, 2019, gets to stay after her sister won a judgment to buy the home on Berkshire Avenue in South Pasadena at the original price Caltrans paid for it. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Rosarie Mata, who has lived in the path of the 710 in a Caltrans home for 25 years with her parents, siblings and children and seen on Friday, March 29, 2019, gets to stay after her sister won a judgment to buy the home on Berkshire Avenue in South Pasadena at the original price Caltrans paid for it. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

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Rosarie Mata, who has lived in the path of the 710 in a Caltrans home for 25 years with her parents, siblings and children and seen on Friday, March 29, 2019, gets to stay after her sister won a judgment to buy the home on Berkshire Avenue in South Pasadena at the original price Caltrans paid for it. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)



The renter of this home on Prospect Avenue in South Pasadena won a judgment to buy the home at the original price Caltrans paid for it. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

The renter of this home on Monterey Road in South Pasadena won a judgment to buy the home at the original price Caltrans paid for it. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

The South Pasadena house was worth at least $1 million, and the tenant could have bought it for under $200,000. But she objected to the deal — and, after a court ruling, she will be able to buy her home for less than $25,000.

Three long-time tenants of homes within the path of a now-defunct freeway extension fought the mighty Caltrans in court and won.

After decades of waiting, Angeles Flores, Marysia Wojick and Priscela Izquierdo had received notice last year from the California Transportation Department that they could buy the homes they had been renting.

The selling price was hundreds of thousands of dollars less than any home on the market in tony South Pasadena — but it had been marked up substantially from the price that Caltrans had paid when it acquired 460 homes in the path of the Interstate 710 project.

The tenants objected to the markup and sued, saying the homes should sell for what Caltrans paid originally.

In a ruling handed down March 11, Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff agreed with the three women. The homes should be offered to them at the original acquisition price, he said.

“The Caltrans policy of adjusting the original acquisition price adjusted for inflation to determine the affordable sales price for the petitioners’ homes is an underground regulation and is therefore nullified,” Beckloff wrote.

The ramifications may make for the lowest priced, single-family home sales in Southern California.

Angeles Flores’ house on Berkshire Avenue was valued by Caltrans at a little more than $1 million. The adjusted price was $171,547. She will be able to buy it for $23,733, the price Caltrans paid in 1968.

Marysia Wojick’s house on Prospect Avenue, aquired by Caltrans in 1973, was valued at $1.1 million, and the adjusted price was $193,575. She will be able to buy it for $32,600.

Priscela Izquierdo’s home on Monterey Road, acquired by Caltrans in 1992, was valued at a little more than $1 million. She will be able to buy it for $314,000.

The median price for a single-family home in Los Angeles County was $505,000 as of Feb. 19. The median home value in South Pasadena is almost $1.2 million, according to Zillow.

Caltrans tried to argue that selling any state-owned properties for less than the market value would be cheating the taxpayers. In its court briefs, the agency argued it had a fiduciary duty to not sell these properties at prices way below market value.

Beckloff ruled for the women, saying the state has no authority to vary from what is known as the Roberti Law, a complex set of regulations that requires Caltrans to offer the homes to tenants who have lived there for a certain period of time and to set a price affordable to those who are low- and moderate-income.

Of the 460 properties that became available when the freeway project was scrapped, about 120 were occupied by tenants who qualified for the affordable price.

While Caltrans has until May 17 to appeal, the agency does not usually do so when it loses in court, said Chris Sutton, the Pasadena attorney who represented the tenants in the case and has been fighting for sale of the surplus homes for decades.

The ruling may allow more than 100 other tenants in the program to buy the homes they are living in at very, very low prices. Or Caltrans may argue the ruling is limited to these three only.

It’s unclear what will happen next in a situation that continues to befuddle cities along the route and frustrate tenants who have divorced, retired early or quit jobs just to keep their income low enough to afford to buy.

Eight renters went ahead and entered escrow to buy the properties at the inflation-adjusted prices, Sutton said. Two plaintiffs in the original complaint backed out after “feeling family pressure” to settle with Caltrans, Sutton said.

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Julia Child’s family home, now owned by Caltrans, is vacant, deteriorating in SoCal The properties, mostly Craftsman-style bungalows, are in Pasadena, South Pasadena and the Los Angeles neighborhood of El Sereno. Many are occupied by older adults, some of whom are living on Social Security and are fearful they will be denied the right to purchase if they sue, Sutton said.

“People are afraid of Caltrans figuring out a way to deny them the right to buy the property,” Sutton said.