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By Brian Hews
The Cerritos Planning Commission has denied a proposed housing development by MLC Holdings, Inc. located at the office complex at the corner of Artesia and Shoemaker.
The Commission members are Cerritos residents Tatiana Yokoyama Bui (Chairperson), Jennifer Hong (Vice Chairperson), Deepak “DJ” Jhaveri, James Giordano and Larry Sagert .
MLC proposed to demolish the four existing two-story commercial office buildings and construct a new gated single-family residential development.
The massive development would have been comprised of twenty-nine two-story detached residences featuring “enhanced architectural detailing in a variety of traditional architectural styles.”
The four and a half hour meeting only addressed the development, and over twenty residents came to the meeting to voice their opinion at public comment.
The owner of MLC also spoke at the meeting. In the end the Planning Commission denied the project – to the complete surprise of the owner of MLC.
Lawyers for the City will now draw up formal documents for the next Planning Commission meeting in order to make the denial of the project “official.”After the formal denial by the commission, the owners of MLC will have a chance to appeal the decision to the Cerritos City Council.
Chair Yokoyama Bui, Vice Chair Hong, Commissioners Jhaveri and Giordano voted no, with the lone yes vote coming from Sagert.
Chair Yokoyama Bui told HMG-CN, “We evaluated the project based on staff reports and residents’ concerns, we accommodated the developer on a number of issues but in the end we just felt it was too many homes for the area.”
HMG-CN reached out to Lester Tucker of MLC Holdings for comment, but Mr. Tucker could not get his comments in before publication.
