Waterfront plan a step in the right direction
Dear ER:
It’s been six months since I finished my second term as a Councilmember in this great community that I’ve been a part of my entire life — Redondo Beach. Although I have enjoyed more time with family and friends these past months, I continue to have concerns about Redondo’s future.
My foremost concerns are in regard to the current condition of our waterfront, which few people visit because of the advanced stages of decay. It has outlived its useful life.
caused by attempts to have it outlive its useful life. Now is the time to take a major step in the right direction with the release of the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for The Waterfront (TheWaterfrontRedondo.com), a project that will completely revitalize our waterfront area and once again make it the gem of the South Bay.
We now have an opportunity to not just restore our crumbling harbor and pier area, but also set the standard for creating a beautiful and accessible public space. We absolutely must quit squabbling over minor details and move forward in formulating the final plans for the greatest improvement to our signature identity in over a century.
As the public comment period finishes up, it’s time for all of us to come together as a community and discuss The Waterfront for what it is (and respectfully correct dissenters for what the project is not). Everyone in the community has the opportunity for the next month to provide comments on the project. Each of these comments will be reviewed by the City to make sure it gets included in the discussions regarding the future of our waterfront.
This is a process we must respect and a process I urge you to take part in and make your voice heard. It is something we can do together as a community – a future we can decide for ourselves. Let’s use this time to offer thoughtful feedback and really understand the facts and benefits of this project. I believe that if we do, we’ll find that this project is one our city can be proud of.
At the same time, we simply must move forward with this process, and make something out of the conversation about the waterfront’s future that has been going on for almost 30 years. In 1992, our city had a general plan set forth to set up parameters for its development. And finally in 2010, Redondo voters passed the instrumental Measure G, which articulated our community’s shared goals for the waterfront areas and clearly set limits on what can be built.
CenterCal, the selected developer for The Waterfront, is moving forward with a plan that is just 73 percent of Measure G’s limit (less than the citizens’ voted to affirm and set in place) on the maximum net new square footage allowed. Let’s use this final period of discussion to help us fulfill this vision that has been nearly 25 years in the making, not find more ways to delay or say “we can’t.”
Let’s also use this comment period to show the City Council and CenterCal how much the community supports The Waterfront and wants to move forward with this project. It’s the perfect opportunity to create a vibrant new space that we can all enjoy for generations, just as the previous waterfront was for generations before us.
When we demonstrate our real community character by pulling together with integrity, we will become
a focused positive force that’s needed to move through this process to make the final design of our new waterfront the best it can be.
Pat Aust
Redondo Beach
(Editor’s note: Aust is a former Redondo city councilman and fire chief)
Biographical fallacies
Dear ER:
Allen Vick’s letter is full of misleading information. It must have been written by CenterCal (“DIER in the headlights,” ER Letters, December 17, 2015). Vick states the parking structure covers “1.48 acres.” Nowhere does the DEIR provide this detail. This is not the letter of an engaged resident. This is a propaganda piece penned by CenterCal.
If the Polly’s sportfishing pier were going to be rebuilt, why does the DEIR evaluate the option of removing it? And why does it conclude its loss would have “no significant impact”? Why is it that the Monstad portion of our pier, built in the 1920s, is still fine but the small sportfishing pier, largely protected from storms and built in the late ‘60s must be torn down? Sound a little fishy?
The new parking structure is “only 1.48 acres.” Only? It is over 500 feet long — longer than the AES Wyland whale wall. The building for the parking structure will be bigger that the shrunk down Seaside Lagoon Park beach. The development will block 80 percent of the views of the harbor from Harbor Drive.
As far as parking for trailer boaters, the Coastal Commission is requiring Redondo put in a boat ramp because more boaters will use a boat ramp than would use a boat hoist. Marina Del Rey has an eight-lane boat ramp with over 200 trailer parking spots. Cabrillo has a three-lane boat ramp with over 100 trailer spots. These ramps are packed on summer weekends. As the only ramp in the 25 miles between Marina Del Rey and Cabrillo, the new boat ramp will get plenty of use. The DEIR includes only 20 trailer boat parking spots. There is no way that is sufficient for the boater traffic we can expect.
As to the pedestrian drawbridge, the DEIR states it will only operate certain hours. Anyone who has boated knows you cannot always control when you need to come back to your slip. Weather changes, people get sick, people get injured, stuff on the boat breaks. To limit hours is a significant impact to any boater with any part over 14 feet high, yet the DEIR concludes, yet again, “no significant impact”.
Denigrating and insulting folks who have moved into condos approved by previous Councils is par for the course for those supporting the mall. But it is ignoring the fact that the vast majority of us opposed to the overdevelopment of the harbor do not live in those condos.
We all want a revitalized harbor. But we can revitalize without over developing.
Jim Light
Redondo Beach
Sound of silence
Dear ER:
The City of Redondo Beach is initiating a censorship campaign to control the distribution and sale of recorded music and songs. I recently received a letter from the City of Redondo Beach advising me that songs like Nic’ees Quikk (Miracle Records, 1992) “have no place in distribution at any City premises” and their distribution “violated Redondo Beach Municipal Code Section 4-10.10.”
Next the City of Redondo Beach will tell Easy Reader what to print, what words to use, what ideas to disseminate and what is appropriate. What gives the City the right to tell a business that it cannot sell copyrighted, published music “at any City premises”?
Steve Shoemaker
Redondo Beach
Editor’s note: Shoemaker is a Redondo Pier master lessee, whose holdings include the Redondo Beach Fun Factory and Redondo Fisherman’s Cove Company.
Santa’s dark companion
Dear ER:
I chuckled at the Krammpstein splash (“Santa’s dark companion,” ER December 10, 2015.) I was recently acknowledged in the indies as the most prolific music critic in America before losing both my venue (Folk And Acoustic Music Exchange [F.A.M.E] folded). I was journo-critically delighted to see a sprawling, lurid, garish, orgiastic double-spread devoted to a cover band comping my drop-dead fave modern ensemble of headbangazoids, Rammstein, in a parodic Xmas twist sure to send the Christians into gibbering apoplexy (oh wait…isn’t that their normal estate?). Having caught damn near all the metal legends in the ‘70s in concert (Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, etc.), it’s very reassuring to know that the style and its more outre theatrical components won’t be going away any time soon as we Boomers start eyeing prime tract homes in the tar pits and listening to Lawrence Welk.
Mark S. Tucker
Manhattan Beach
