The City of Redondo Beach will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday, Sept. 30, at 3:30 p.m., for work on the open space under the power lines along Herondo Street west of Pacific Coast Highway.
Guests are asked to wear comfortable shoes and park on Herondo Street.
The right-of-way ground is owned by Southern California Edison. The new project will beautify the land with native plants and add a walking path. Construction is set to begin Oct. 1.
Phase One, including work on the Eastern half of the site – just over two acres – is expected to be complete in four months.
2 Responses
Just imagine connecting the Hermosa Greenbelt here, then continuing up the hill along 190th, all the way into Columbia Park.
When Manhattan and Hermosa Beach chose to adopt the old obsolete rail line easement for their Greenbelts, Redondo Beach chose PUBLIC STORAGE, instead.
Imagine if we had the existing Greenbelt connecting these three beach cities, with bike paths, urban trails a little charming rest and play stops
We can still have our amazing linear park up the power corridor by negotiating with the owners. There are several sources of funding for park projects like this.
Pat Healy –
– The lease for the 5 acres under the powerlines west of PCH is $3020.54 a year (that’s $604.10 per acre per year). It was publicly approved at the City Council meeting on 5/17/2022. It was approved unanimously. This was all approved in a public meeting and it is publicly available online on the City website. So this was fully disclosed and conducted with full transparency and approved in a public meeting by Councilmembers Nehrenheim, Loewenstein, Horvath, Emdee, and Obagi. You seem to imply that something was nefarious, but the public record shows otherwise.
– The money spent on the park is not from the General Fund which has the shortfall. It is from funds reserved for parks. It is seems odd that you did not object to the expenditures on the North Redondo bike path extension which is on property leased from SCE(as is the whole bike path under the power lines in North Redondo. And was approved this year as well. In addition to Redondo many other cities lease SCE Right of Way property for public parkland and open space including El Segundo and Torrance. These parks and our North Redondo bikepath have been leased for many years.
– The only path to a power plant removed before December 31, 2023 would have been a vote for Measure A, drafted by Bill Brand and myself. It qualified for the ballot but was narrowly defeated when AES spent over $600K to oppose it. They threatened power outages and lawsuits. The failed Heart of the City zoning allowed for a new smaller power plant on the AES property. AES tried to get us to pass a mixed use zoning plan in Measure B. It failed. But the provisions of Measure B allowed the current power plant to run as long as AES could get a contract – which turned out to be December 31, 2023. So it was the defeat of Measure A that allowed the power plant to run until December 31, 2023.
– The current bankruptcy has nothing to do with the City. AES sold the property to Pustilnikov then foreclosed on him when he failed to meet payment terms. The day before the property auction, Pustilnikov filed bankruptcy leaving the property in limbo.
– Our efforts to protect the harbor area have been successful. The harbor is going through revitalization without over development. Our efforts to shut down the power plant were successful ultimately. AES Redondo is the only one of the remaining once through cooling plants that has shut down. Redondo residents no longer suffer the pollution from the least efficient and most polluting remaining once through cooling power plants. And billions of marine life larvae are saved each year. AES Redondo was our largest point source of air pollution in Redondo. And with westerly winds, marine layers, and the uphill topography leading eastward, those pollutants were directly impinging on residential neighborhoods, medical offices, and schools.
So there are your answers Pat. No political branding. Just the facts. All a matter of public record. And soon we will enjoy our first sizable park addition in decades.