City will not consider AES downzoning
Councilman Bill Brand Tuesday night revisited an idea first brought up by city planning staff six years ago – exploring the legal option of rezoning the AES power plant site so at some date in the future industrial use would no longer be permitted. Brand, the chief advocate for creating a park on the site, said that AES’s recently announced intentions to repower the technologically outdated power plant along Harbor Drive means that the city urgently needs to examine its legal options or else find itself committed to another century of an industrial uses at the site. “This is not a taking, this is not eminent domain,” Brand said. “We are not signing up to take their power plant…But we do have the right, under California law, to dictate what the uses are down there.” Brand said his understanding of the law is that if the determination could be made the existing use damages the community more than a rezoning damages the current property owner, a city could legally undertake a rezoning to a less impactful use. He sought to have City Attorney Mike Webb research the matter and prepare a memo to give the council a better understanding of the legal issues surrounding a possible rezoning…
Read this story on easyreadernews.com