The battle over new zoning in King Harbor began two weeks ahead of schedule at Tuesday night’s Redondo Bech City Council meeting when what was intended as a receive-and-file staff report regarding Redondo Beach’s development history erupted into an acrimonious feud.
Planning director Aaron Jones delivered a short report to the council that detailed the pattern of the city’s growth – a report that essentially showed the city grew mostly over a 30 year period beginning in the 1940s and has more recently seen little increase in population or development.
Specifically, a population that had more than doubled from 1950 to 1970 – when 56,075 residents lived in Redondo – had grown to 67,488 by 2008. According to the report, the city saw an average of 562 new residential units per year in the 1970s, but from 2000 to 2008 only 67 units were added, on average, each year.
“This trend continues to slow, and slow, and slow,” Jones told the council.
The report appeared aimed at the “slow growth” activist group Building a Better Redondo, which has argued that the city’s growth has been largely unimpeded. Last year the group passed ballot Measure DD, which requires a citywide vote on significant new development.
More recently, the group has threatened to launch a lawsuit requiring a vote on new harbor zoning that the city contends was enacted prior to Measure DD and is therefore not subject to it. That zoning, which will allow up to 400,000 sq. ft. of new commercial development, was approved last year by the California Coastal Commission – a state agency that has purview over coastal development – and will return to the council for final approval on Feb. 16.
Councilmember Bill Brand is one of Building a Better Redondo’s leaders and has actively fundraised on behalf of the possible lawsuit. In a recent letter to the editor submitted to local papers, he described the proposed zoning as the City Council’s “final assault on our waterfront that began with the Heart of the City,” a development plan the council passed in 2002. It would have allowed 1.6 million sq. ft. of development and 2,998 residential units. The plan was thwarted by a citizen-led referendum movement of which Brand was a part.
Jones’ report detailed recent harbor development. He noted there has been no new development in 11 years, and only two new projects (Kincaid’s and Ruby’s restaurants) totaling 16,766 sq. ft. since the city’s General Plan, crafted in 1992, allowed for 324,000 sq. ft.
“Those are just some of the facts about the harbor and pier area – what it means to have capacity and what it means to have actual projects,” Jones said.
Councilman Pat Aust said the city has actually experienced negative growth in the harbor due to storms and fires that damaged the area two decades ago.
“We hear about all the rampant growth and all the things we are doing in the harbor…well, in 1988, we lost 27,000 sq. ft. down there on the pier alone,” Aust said. “So we’ve put back just a little more than half of what was lost.”
Brand likened the proposed zoning to the Heart of the City and suggested that it grew out of a Harbor Task Force that was not subject to broad public involvement. He noted he himself, as a citizen, had been considered for the task force but ultimately rejected by City Manager Bill Workman. He said the council needed to hit a “reset button” and allow a public vote on the zoning.
“Everyone wants to see [the harbor area] revitalized, no question,” Brand said. “But they’d much rather we work with what is there…I talk to residents all the time and I feel like I have a finger on the pulse of what is going on, not only in my district but in the entire community – they do not want to see views blocked and don’t want to see traffic impacted.”
Councilman Steve Diels took exception to Brand’s characterization of the zoning process, which had occurred at the City Council itself and had included broad public input. He said that BBR leaders had spoke favorably about the new zoning after its passage, which he noted was considerably less than the 750,000 sq. ft. originally proposed to the council.
“I get very confused by this sort of revisionist history,” Diels said. “You are saying one thing, then saying something else. We made this decision in public, not behind closed doors.”
“I do not attack my local community, and I am not assaulting anything at all,” Diels added.
Councilman Steve Aspel appeared particularly rankled. He noted that he’d defeated members of BBR handily in two elections in his own district and questioned Brand’s assertion that he knew what the people of the city wanted.
“You have the right to sue the City Council, sue the city – that is fine, that is the beauty of our democracy, we don’t have to get along,” he said. “But you sat there and said you have a finger on the pulse of the people. That is crap….In my humble opinion, you should quit anointing yourself the guardian angel of Redondo Beach. We are all up here doing the best we can for the citizens of Redondo Beach.”
Brand said the solution to the entire debate was simple – put the matter to a citywide public vote, as called for in Measure DD. He said his fellow councilmen’s position would be unlikely to win such a vote.
“The public won’t approve 400,000 sq. ft.,” Brand said.
“Win what?” Diels said. “We just got a presentation on the history of growth in Redondo Beach. What are you talking about?” ER
