During the City of Claremont’s Public Comment Period for South Village Partners’ Village South Townhome Project, which ended on July 20, feedback was generally unfavorable. The original plan created by a private developer expressed intent to use the land immediately south of Claremont’s current village to build mixed-use buildings, but has since pivoted to for-sale townhomes.
“I’d say almost unanimously, I can’t think that there was anybody saying, ‘We really liked the new proposal,'” Chris Veirs, Claremont’s city planner, said. “What we did get are lots of people that were concerned about the change and the move away from a more diverse type of housing to more of an ownership-only, all one-size unit and… garages type of development.”
After two phone calls and an email, Village South Developers could not be reached for comment on the plan’s reception.
On July 1, 2021, the Claremont City Council approved the “Village South Specific Plan” to expand the city’s downtown area past its former southern boundary. The plan created by private developer South Village Partners originally expressed intent to take advantage of the land’s adjacency to the Claremont Train Station to foster a pedestrian-friendly environment.
Since the approval of the original proposal, South Village Partners appear to have changed their vision for Village South in the latest version of their plan submitted to the city in November 2025. The land allocated to South Village Partners by the City of Claremont for the purpose of mixed-use and affordable housing is now slated for the development of 140 “entirely… for-sale, three-story townhomes” without ground-floor businesses and restaurants.
While these concerns were central to the opposition to the revised Village South plan, reservations about the land’s environmental conditions were also being voiced.
On March 23, the City of Claremont received notice in a document from South Village Partners’ attorneys entitled “Village South Townhome Project CEQA Exemption Statement of Reasons” that the revised project is exempt from undergoing further review in a new Environmental Impact Report.
“There’s a lot of concern regarding… some pollutants that were known to exist in the soil,” Viers said, “but the scale and scope of that ‘contamination,’ I guess, a better word, wasn’t known when we completed our initial EIR (Environmental Impact Report) and there’s more information available today. So there were lots of letters regarding that.”
In 2023, a soil gas sample investigation found high concentrations of “environmentally sensitive” chemicals benzene, tetrachloroethene and trichloroethene along the northern edge of the Village South area. The contamination is attributed to the former Garner Glass building in the Village South CEQA Exemption Statement of Reasons.
On the issue of transit friendliness, Veirs said “We had quite a few people who wrote in and talked about the need for that transit-oriented development with a mix of uses and a walkable environment. So those were the main points from my perspective.”
“I think we’re concerned that it’s not consistent with the Specific Plan,” said Veirs, “And that’s what we’ve been saying in our letters and communication with the applicant, is we’re concerned that it appears to be inconsistent. A big part of that plan is creating a mixed-use development with a variety of housing types and a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood.”
Additionally, this original plan expressed a “goal of housing diversity and affordability by providing a variety of unit types.” Necessary amendments to the city’s General Plan and Zoning Code, along with an Environmental Impact Report for this version of the Village South plan, were approved by the City Council during a June 22 meeting.
“That vision was developed over several years of public planning and that supported a diversity of housing types, active mobility, high-quality design, public spaces, mixed uses, local economic vitality, and reduced automobile dependence,” said advocacy group Sustainable Claremont.
Char Miller, a member of Sustainable Claremont’s board and director of the Claremont Colleges’ Environmental Analysis program, spoke about the inconsistencies with the new Village South plan.
“The revised plan is fundamentally flawed, because it really revises the original and agreed upon provisions about what would be built there, those amenities and… housing types,” Miller said. “… The plan, as originally conceived and agreed upon by the city, made Village South a more walkable… part of the city, a more dense part of the city. It made sure that it was transit-oriented.”
Advocacy groups are not alone in their confusion and hesitation toward the revised Village South plan. The City of Claremont’s Planning and Land Use Department has also had difficulty following Village South Developers’ new vision for the land.
“We basically had an application and tried to figure out how we were going to process it, and what the state requirements were for us,” said Veirs. “It’s a complex project and this is a significant change.”
From Veirs’ perspective, the approval of the revised plan as proposed by Village South Partners has been logistically difficult.
“They’re using a state law that’s intended to streamline the city’s reviews of housing projects, and one of the ways it does that is by not allowing additional environmental review,” said Viers. “And that’s what they’re trying, that’s the code they’re invoking.”
Veirs is referring to Assembly Bill 1633 from 2023, which attempts to prevent jurisdictions from blocking housing developments that have already passed environmental review by requiring the jurisdiction to “provide the applicant with written documentation identifying the provision or provisions, and an explanation of the reason or reasons it considers the housing development to be inconsistent.”
Miller said he believes that the original Village South plan would have extended the “very features that have made Claremont so special,” and hopes that the plan will eventually incorporate such features. Miller said he does not, however, believe the current plan does this.
In the change from rental units to for-sale townhomes, Miller is concerned that the revised plan will “exclude… certain kinds of people from living there.”
“I’m really in support of development there,” said Miller. “If it can be done in a way that maximizes the diversity of… demographics, that maximizes the mixed use, and maximizes people’s access. Not everybody can buy a house or a townhome. And we need renters, and it creates a different kind of dynamic and vitality that I think is essential in any city.”
The City of Claremont has not yet revealed what is to come for Village South since the Public Comment Period.
