Alamo Villages

Entitled two years ago, nothing built

Walnut approved 70 three-story townhomes at Nogales Street and Francesca Drive in September 2024, replacing an auto-oriented shopping center, a car wash, and a gas station on 3.87 acres. The entitlement was unusually complete — the city adopted a project-specific plan, rezoned the site, and signed a development agreement, all in one package. Twenty-three months later, the center is still standing and no building permit has surfaced in public records.

What's proposed

• 70 townhomes in three-story buildings, at 18.08 dwelling units per acre
• 163 parking spaces, a community recreation area, an internal roadway, and landscaping
• No affordable units and no density bonus — the density comes from a specific plan written for this one site
• No developer entity, architect, or general contractor is named in any city or state filing

How it got here

The package had four moving parts. A specific plan is a zoning document written for one site rather than seeking exceptions to the citywide code; the 2024-02 zone change brought the map into line with it. A development agreement — approved under Municipal Code Chapter 6.112 and Government Code Section 65864 — locks in the rules in force at signing so a later code change can't strand the project. Tentative Tract Map 83913 is the subdivision approval allowing 3.87 acres to become 70 separately sellable townhomes. On environmental review, Walnut used a statutory exemption tiered off the EIR certified with its 2018 General Plan Update, finding no significant effects peculiar to this site beyond what that report already analyzed.

Where it stands

The center at Nogales and Francesca is entitled for demolition, but no building or demolition permit has surfaced in public sources, and Walnut does not publish a searchable permit portal. The city's own Developments page still lists Alamo Villages under tentative applications with only environmental documents attached — a page that reads as unmaintained since entitlement rather than a statement about project status. Walnut has several other large applications moving at the same time (The Terraces at Walnut, Walnut Business Park, Brookside, and a mixed-use project at La Puente and Grand) but Alamo Villages is the one that has already cleared council — and the one furthest from breaking ground.