South Bay Echo for Aug 18
Plans unveiled for AES site, cities disagree over Metro C Line and a new AVP doc ahead of Manhattan Beach Open
Welcome to the 37th edition of South Bay Echo, your source of local hometown news with a real estate angle.
This Substack is brought to you by Rosetree Real Estate, a full service real estate brokerage dealing in residential and commercial properties to both own and lease. For more information visit RosetreeRealEstate.com. DRE# 02145024
Plans unveiled for AES property
There was big news this week in the Daily Breeze revealing new plans by the owners of the AES property and the sneaky way they plan to get it passed without a vote of the people.
Lo and behold, the guarded character with undisclosed business partners, Leo Pustilnikov, has gone back on his word not to propose residential units.
Unveiled this week for the first time is Pustilnikov’s poker hand. And would you believe it, the new plans include nearly 2,300 housing units and buildings up to 18 stories. That’s a far bigger footprint than what voters have rejected twice now in ballot measures going back 20 years.
But Pustilnikov has a plan for this too. He and his partners want to circumvent Redondo Beach’s Measure DD, which requires a public vote to change the zoning at the power plant site, by applying for an exemption under California’s Senate Bill 330.
There is a catch however. SB 330 was passed in 2019, after Redondo’s Measure DD. The bill was primarily meant to prevent downzoning, so fast-tracking an enormous project like this might be beyond its scope. Bottom line: There are definitely legal questions whether the developers can get away with this.
So, as is the saga that has and may well forever be the AES property, it will continue.
Cities clash over light rail preference
While Metro has been holding community meetings over the past week to discuss it’s proposed C Line extension, formerly the Green Line, the project is once again stirring up the political beer mash.
The Redondo Beach City Council appears united in their opposition to the light rail travelling along the railroad tracks through Lawndale and North Redondo to 190th because it’s too close to nearby homes. Instead, they prefer it go down Hawthorne Boulevard on an elevated track.
Meanwhile, Torrance reiterated its position last week that the Hawthorne Boulevard route is a terrible idea saying it’s more costly with greater impacts.
In Metro’s prior analysis of the choices, that is indeed what they found. The agency determined that it already had the funding from Measures M and R for the right-of-way option at a cost of $890 million. Putting the line in a trench in the right-of-way to reduce sound would cost $1.1 billion. The aerial Hawthorne Boulevard route would cost $1 billion to $1.22 billion, according to the report.
Ongoing maintenance costs would be far lower as well — $13.2 million for the ROW compared to $18.1 million above the boulevard. Not to mention, the ROW route would connect to the Redondo transit center at the Galleria while the other option would not.
Aside from cost, Torrance says the elevated route would create significant impacts to businesses and residents near Hawthorne Boulevard. It would require additional right-of-way acquisitions from Lawndale and Caltrans, reduced parking, and modifications to turn lane pockets.
None of this, however, has deterred Redondo Beach folks from vociferously arguing against the right-of-way option as if they were trying to stop a proposed invasion.
None have been more determined than Redondo Councilman Zein Obagi, who wrote in a Facebook post last week that he learned the Hawthorne Boulevard route might require taking land from one of Lawndale’s top revenue generators.
So what is Obagi’s solution? In addition to choosing the option that’s most costly with the greatest impacts, he wants Metro to compensate Lawndale for the loss of its tax revenues after it destroys one of its best businesses. I mean, really, is that for real?
There is literally no other reason to oppose the right-of-way option unless it’s in your backyard. I sympathize with those folks, but guess what? It’s going to be in someone’s backyard no matter where it goes.
Besides, the thing is electric and almost silent. And with our community expected to only get more crowded, we’re going to need more transportation options.
To learn more go to Metro.net.
Manhattan Beach Open this weekend
The famed AVP Manhattan Beach Open, where beach volleyball all began, starts Friday and runs through the weekend. To get you pumped for the event, check out this documentary series released this month on Youtube called AVP Uncovered.
Director Mark Bucknam, with BYB Pictures, gives us a behind the scenes look at the 2021 AVP season, showcasing the extreme highs and the bitter lows. The series follows four of the tour’s top players, including Jake Gibb, as he competed for the last time.
Read more about it at Forbes.com.
All for now… thanks for reading. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
I live on 171st. and Firmona. I've been rooting for placement where there are tracks used by a freight train every day. Obagi is advocating that the least able to defend themselves pay the freight (pun intended) as when the interstate highway system in the 60s routed poor people out of their neighborhoods. No interstate ramps into Beverly Hills, Palos Verdes and the Palisades. To run it on elevated track through Hawthorne would be a full employment act for the attorneys. Eminent domain actions, environmental swat teams and disruption for the general population would be the name of the game. Remember when a discount grocery and a pharmacy were going in on Artesia? Protestors kicked and squealed. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what was objectionable about a grocery and a pharmacy. Then it dawned on me. The great unwashed from Lawndale would cross the line of demarcation on Inglewood Blvd. and there goes the neighborhood. I suspect Obagi is of the same mentality.
Wow, all that outdated, obsolete data and commentary.... Anyone up on the facts of these routes can clearly see the advantage in Metro servicing businesses and stopping at true destinations like the soon to be re-developed South Bay Galleria and the apartments coming with it, but also the increased ridership that Metro now touts.
Other than the Metro stop at Hawthorne & Artesia potentially luring shoppers away from the Del Amo Mall, there is nothing for Torrance residents to complain about, as this route brings a station closer to potential North Torrance riders. And Torrance could have asked for the tracks to go all the way down Hawthorne (elevated) so their mall could also be a destination for shoppers. But they didn't, and that's all on them.
And BTW, even Metro now says the elevated Hawthorne option would be less expensive than the trenching option that goes under 182nd St. Without that expensive trench, the emergency response vehicles stationed just east of the ROW tracks would be unacceptably obstructed with a train crossing every 6 or 7 minutes, so that original plan is effectively of the table now, leaving the elevated Hawthorne option as the best in ridership, in delivery of riders to shopping destinations, in reducing the many negative local resident impacts, and in cost.