At the end of a six-and-a-half-hour meeting, the Redondo Beach City Council, ultimately, voted for the path of greatest safety regarding an appeal of the Legado Redondo project…and the developer’s legal team.
The council unanimously voted to send Legado’s Mediterranean-styled 146 apartment unit, 23,764 commercial square-foot design back to the city’s Planning Commission for further review. Their recommendation would then be passed back to the Council, who would then make the final decision regarding the mixed-use project.
Legado Redondo’s history before Redondo’s governmental bodies stretches back more than a year, to last March, when the company’s original, 180-unit project was placed before the Planning Commission. Due to community backlash, the commission asked the developer to return in 60 days with greater community outreach and a project that took into account community complaints regarding scale, massing, density and traffic. That evolved into a 149 unit project.
In November, two meetings later, Legado placed a significantly redesigned 146 unit project before the Planning Commission. However, they missed a submission deadline intended to give city staff an opportunity to fully review the plan. Though the commission could have continued the meeting, Legado insisted upon an up-or-down vote — resulting in the commission’s vote to deny the project, citing “specific, adverse impacts upon public health or safety” with regards to traffic, neighborhood parking and noise.
Legado’s appeal of that decision led to Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, which packed Council chambers and led to an overflow crowd of more than 45 people.
Passions were high. Many project supporters say that they’ve been verbally harassed for their views, and were asked if they were paid to be there. While giving her comment, one Redondo Beach resident, Cathy Caplener, was asked by District 2 Councilman Bill Brand if she “worked for” Legado. Caplener said that she did not. However, Caplener is a public relations consultant who has, in recent months, performed outreach work for Legado. Asked later, Caplener said she was in attendance as a private citizen and resident.
The audience was diverse, as well, though demographics were more mixed on the pro-Legado side; proponents of the project were very often young professionals from around the Beach Cities in their early-20s to early-30s. Many seniors voiced their support of the project as well, such as former councilman Don Szerlip, who expressed his difficulty in finding an apartment last year. Had housing stock such as Legado’s been on the market, Szerlip argued, he might not have struggled to find a new home as much as he did.
Many of the supporters also argued that Legado Redondo would greatly increase the availability of affordable housing in the area. Jordan Almeida, a Torrance resident who recently returned from working overseas, said he’s targeted Redondo Beach as a place he’d like to settle into. However, “steep [housing] prices” and a lack of stock made him look elsewhere. Asked later, he said that rent of around $1,500 monthly for a one bedroom unit would fit his needs.
Opponents of the project continued to reiterate their points that Legado’s influx of residents would make already poorly-rated intersections, such as at Palos Verdes Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway, more tedious for drivers and dangerous for pedestrians. Some took issue with arguments that the apartment stock would be “affordable,” noting Legado’s insistence that units would be at or under market-rate. One resident, Jim Phillips, even made his arguments in verse, reading a poem aloud. But, as a resident noted after the meeting, nearly half of the opponents to the South Redondo project are Torrance residents.
The elephant in the room, as addressed by many, including council, was the Palos Verdes Inn, which sits on the same lot and is owned by Legado. The Inn has been out of operation since June 2015, following damage from a fire. Legado CEO Edward Czuker, when questioned, said that remodeling has been held up by both the approval of the project and by issues with insurance.
Ultimately, as District 3 Councilman Christian Horvath said, the issue is one of “change and compromise,” noting that, though much of the audience opposed the project, they wished to see something there, and some kind of compromise, and that the project should be a “beacon” of the community. He finally indicated that he would be in favor of sending the project back to Planning Commission for further review.
City Attorney Mike Webb advised this would be the safest course of action. His concern was, should council deny Legado’s appeal, they would be subject to legal action; similarly, had they approved either of Legado’s proposed projects, they could be subject to legal challenge from the community. By sending the project back to the commission for review, the council could issue an informed ruling that, in essence, played by the city’s own rules for plan review and development.
Legado Redondo will again be before the Planning Commission on May 19, before returning to Council on June 14.
