by Steven Diels
Redondo Beach City Treasurer, former City Councilmember
Let’s face the facts. The Redondo Beach Waterfront has become a major safety hazard and has long lost its allure. Residents knew this long before our City Council began moving toward waterfront revitalization nearly a decade ago. “We’ve got a mess,” agrees Councilmember Bill Brand.
The public process is designed for transparency and public input, not efficiency. It is an extensive and expensive process. We have invested 30 years into this seemingly never-ending conversation, as well as millions of dollars, including $650,000 on emergency repairs to the three piers just last year.
In 2008, the Redondo Beach City Council listened to the public and reduced the proposed development cap by 40 percent, as we set the limits for Measure G. To which Jim Light, outspoken charter founder of opposition groups BBR (Building a Better Redondo) through ROW (Rescue Our Waterfront), wrote “I applaud your compromise on the development cap on the pier and harbor rezoning. It resolves the compliance issues and provides a stable environment with reasonable growth for developers to make investment decisions.”
Fortunately, the California Coastal Commission and the majority of Redondo Beach resident voters agreed in 2010. They voted yes on Measure G to revitalize our waterfront and limit development.
In 2012, The Redondo Beach City Council, by a vote of 4-1, selected CenterCal out of a field of qualified developers to come up with a plan. In 2015, two independent economic studies validated the size and scope of the plan. And now in 2016 we are in the midst of a comprehensive environmental review process.
The proposals and processes provided by CenterCal comply with what residents approved and what the state requires. The proposed project still has to be approved by the Harbor Commission, the City Council and the Coastal Commission. Each agency will scrutinize every last detail of the project to decide whether to approve it. And that’s after the consistent feedback residents have been asked to provide over the last three years.
Last week, an impartial study was presented to the City Council stating that the City – and by City I mean taxpayers — could fund patchwork maintenance of the crumbling parking garage through bonds, increased taxes and/or grants. This expensive Band-Aid approach will hardly extend the life of the parking garage, making taxpayers give up their hard-earned money now and again very soon in the future.
Much of the information provided by opponents of the project is incorrect, or severely misleading. The angst commonly heard from the opponents’ arguments can be simply stated “It’s not being done my way.” Well, we all can’t have it our way. Such is the by-product of adulthood and the public process. But we all can have a beautiful, safe, environmentally friendly, revitalized waterfront as afforded by the current process.
As Redondo Beach’s City Treasurer, former Councilmember and 25 year Redondo Beach resident, I look at facts and figures every day and I see the bottom line. The current process will not burden Residents with increased taxes. The CenterCal proposal prepays $50 Million in rent to correct the cracked walls, rusty iron and falling concrete that you can see for yourself when you visit – if you ever visit – the waterfront. The proposal will bring $400 million worth of new life to the entire waterfront, not limited to the parking garage. The lifespan of the infrastructure, thanks to the proposed private-public partnership, will be five decades or more. And its maintenance will be financed and managed by CenterCal.
While the proposed project may not be perfect, it is a great compromise. CenterCal is making it a priority to include many of everyone’s favorite legacy tenants in the new project and will make sure it’s affordable to them so that they can thrive. Clearly, if the tenants don’t thrive, the whole project will suffer.
Let’s continue to commit to the process, and make sure that we are learning the facts and working together to create something within our vision when we passed Measure G and that we’ll be proud of for years to come.
