Building a Better Redondo sues Redondo
The citizen’s group Building a Better Redondo last week sued the city of Redondo Beach in an attempt to force a public vote on harbor area zoning.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last Thursday, accuses City Hall of fostering “a culture of hostility to the public’s interests” and a “culture of indifference to the effects on resident’s quality of life from projects that drastically increase vehicular traffic.”
At issue is whether or not harbor zoning changes initially enacted by the City Council in June of 2008 are subject to Measure DD, the “slow growth” an initiative passed by BBR in November of that year that amended the City Charter to require a public vote on significant changes to land use in the city.
BBR president Jim Light said that the group was left with no choice but to sue the city.
“Our requests for the City Council to put the harbor rezoning, likely to be the largest rezoning in the foreseeable future, to a vote of the people, have repeatedly fallen on deaf ears,” Light said. “A lawsuit is our only recourse at this point to protect the people’s right to vote.”
City Attorney Mike Webb said the lawsuit was “not unexpected” and argued that DD simply did not apply to the zoning changes.
“The Council can’t govern based on sound bites,” Webb said. “They have to go by what actually is in the Charter, and the section in the Charter put there by the approval of DD. We have a difference of legal opinion as to whether or not it compels a vote on the zoning.”
City Councilman Steve Aspel took particular exception to Councilman Bill Brand’s involvement in the lawsuit Brand, who co-wrote Measure DD, has helped fundraise on behalf of BBR’s lawsuit. Aspel also suggested that Light, who unsuccessfully ran for the City Council seat that Aspel won in 2004, was essentially trying to grab power by other means.
“I think Bill Brand is out of line as an elected official suing his own city,” Aspel said. “That is the bottom line, and Jim Light – this is just his way to gain power in Redondo, which he could not win by election.”
Brand said that he did not personally sue the city but acknowledged that he fully supported the lawsuit. And he suggested the Aspel was missing the larger point of the lawsuit.
“He can castigate me all he wants, but that isn’t what this is about,” Brand said. “…This isn’t about Bill Brand, this about the residents who want to vote on whether to allow three story timeshares and a mall in King Harbor.”
Brand noted that the lawsuit was supported by many residents, including many from Aspel’s district. According to Light, more than 200 contributors helped raise $46,000 for the legal fight, including such groups as the Sierra Club, the Surfrider Foundation, and the South Bay Parkland Conservancy (which Brand founded).
The Council’s rezoning was originally intended to clear up the confusion left behind by the failed Heart of the City, a redevelopment plan that was passed in 2002 and then rescinded after a citizen’s referendum movement gathered 12,000 signatures in less than a month. The Heart of the City, which would have allowed as much as 1.6 million sq. ft. of development, was not entirely repealed, however – the petitioners would have had to carry as many as five different petitions to successfully do this, and instead carried only two. Thus zoning inconsistencies were left in place.
The council addressed the matter in 2008 by passing new harbor zoning that included a development cap of 400,000 sq. ft. Last year, the council submitted a Coastal Land Use Plan (LUP) to the California Coastal Commission, the state agency charged with oversight of coastal development. The LUP laid out development parameters and would have enabled the city to approve projects in the harbor without going before the commission for every change.
The commission tentatively approved a LUP for the city, requiring 17 modifications – including view corridor protections and a public boat launch – which the council in April adopted in order to gain full certification.
The crux of the legal debate, then, is exactly when the rezoning itself went into effect. The city argues that the zoning is separate from the LUP and went into effect in June, 2008, and thus does not require a public vote. BBR claims that new harbor zoning does not become effective until the Land Use Plan has been certified by Coastal Commission and thus is subject to the Charter’s new voting requirements under DD. Both agree that the LUP will require a public vote.
“They were submitted as a package,” Light said. “Why would they have them broken up and have a vote on one but not the other?”
Webb said that sending the zoning changes to a vote would open the city up to lawsuits from harbor property owners, since to do so could represent a potential loss in property value. He further argued that to do so would be outside the bounds of the City Charter, since the changes put in place by DD lay out specific conditions that he does not believe are met by the timing of the rezoning.
“It’s not a matter of discretion…You can’t just pick and chose,” Webb said.
Brand disagreed with the City Attorney’s interpretation and suggested the council should respond the wishes of voters, 60 percent of who voted for Measure DD in hopes of having a say regarding future development.
“The Redondo Beach City Council should stop speculating about potential lawsuits by developers that might happen and start recognizing the very real lawsuit that just dropped in their lap,” Brand said. “They need to simply put this up to a vote.”
Both Webb and Councilman Steve Diels warned of the unintended consequences should BBR’s lawsuit succeed. Webb said that by BBR’s legal rationale, no zoning has been in place in the harbor since before the passing of California’s Coastal Act in 1976 – because no harbor zoning was certified by the Coastal Commission, which was created by the act. Therefore, Webb said, should the new zoning go to a public vote and get voted down, zoning from the 1960s would go into effect.
“That is the logical conclusion,” Webb said. “If the lawsuit is successful and the zoning is turned down by the public, then they are going back to having no cap on development, because zoning back in the 1960s was very permissive…. They will be responsible, if successful, for increasing what the permissible zoning is. That is the irony.”
Light said this could not happen because the Coastal Commission would never allow unlimited development.
“Their argument is not based on reality,” Light said. “That is kind of a scare tactic, because if the ordinance fails and the LUP fails, the Coastal Commission retains final authority…They are not going to approve something more dense than what [the council] just signed up to do.”
Diels said another possibility is the zoning would revert to the Heart of the City zoning.
“It was my understanding people wanted to get rid of the Heart of the City, which is what we have done,” Diels said. “Again, we have been down-zoning. But if the lawsuit is successful, I think the Heart of the City zoning we have been systematically removing could go in effect. I don’t know; it’s for the lawyers to decide. Basically, what [BBR] are doing is taking away local control and putting it in the hands of a judge, or they want to take it away and give it to the Coastal Commission.”
Diels also suggested the BBR leaders, including Light, have been inconsistent because they initially praised the council’s rezoning as a good compromise. Light, however, said the city’s argument is inconsistent.
“On the one hand, they are saying, ‘Trust us, we can manage this 400,000 sq. ft.’,” Light said. “But then on other hand, ‘You can’t trust us if it’s unlimited.’ Our position is the document is too pro-developer…I prefer to see a document for our zoning more in line with Dana Point than Marina Del Rey.” ER