PASADENA – The city’s general plan helps determine the future of Pasadena housing, transportation and open space, but few residents have likely heard of it.

That’s why city officials held an open house on Saturday, to encourage residents to offer their input on the plan.

The event featured a series of speakers and discussions, and a chance for the public to interact with city staff members to discuss the city’s priorities in the general plan.

Councilman Terry Tornek acknowledged the difficulty in explaining the plan to the public.

“While the plan might seem abstract and mysterious, it has tremendous impact on how the city feels and looks,” he said.

The general plan is updated every five years, and every city in the state is legally required to have one. It deals with open space, transportation, housing density and several other related topics.

Pasadena has been holding public meetings over the last few months to gauge residents’ concerns.

Topping the list were overdevelopment, overpopulation, a shortage of parks and accessible open space, high density and traffic.

The next step is for a city council-appointed committee to take those concerns and integrate them into an updated draft of the plan, which will happen sometime in spring 2010.

Forming a plan that can help address all the concerns expressed by residents can be challenging.

For example, concentrating housing in an area that also has shops and restaurants – such as in central Pasadena – can help reduce car use because it encourages people to walk. But based on how people are responding to the idea of high-density zones, trying to reduce traffic that way might be a tough sell, said Julianna Delgado, a professor of urban planning at Cal Poly Pomona who is serving on the general plan committee.

“It’s up to the people, and the current climate would seem to be against increasing density,” said Delgado.

Reducing traffic has been a challenge for the city over the years.

A city surveyed showed that despite increases in walking and biking to work from 1990 to 2008, the overall number of people driving to work in cars by themselves has increased.

That’s largely due to a big reduction in carpooling. Combined with an increase in population and continued commercial development, it highlights the problems the city faces with traffic.

Concerns are not limited to just overdevelopment and traffic, though. Other priorities include a lack of affordable housing and a lack of focus on northwest and eastern Pasadena neighborhoods.

A good way to start dealing with those issues would be increased public outreach in northwest Pasadena, said Ishmael Trone, who works on a city committee focused on the development of the Fair Oaks Avenue area.

“They need to hold one of these events on the other side of town,” Trone said Saturday.

“They’re concerned about low turnout for this process, so that would be a way to get the numbers up.”

dan.abendschein@sgvn.com

(626) 962-8811, Ext. 4451