The news is out and about. Folks are making comments and are sharing opinions based on the newest plans and numbers for the Ponte Vista at San Pedro Development.
For those who do not already know a bit of my history with the project, here is some history, followed by some numbers, all injected with comments and opinions and facts, true facts.
Back in 2005 my wife and I first learned of Bob Bisno's plans to build 2,300 condominium units on a 61.53-acre land mass that he bought from the Federal Government at auction and purchased the rest from the Volunteers of America organization.
My wife Terri was preliminarily asked if she wanted to seek a position as part of the marketing team that was being set up in trailers on the Ponte Vista site which is along Western Avenue across the road from Green Hills Cemetary.
My wife said no thank you and I eventually became involved in a community organization that opposed Bob Bisno's plans to bring such a huge development to an area that shares a portion of its border with Rancho Palos Verdes.
I served on Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn's Community Advisory Committee for the Ponte Vista at San Pedro Development as one of three R.P.V. residents selected by our City Council to serve on the Committee and represent the interests of our city.
In September, 2006 I began my: www.pontevista.blogspot.com blog and it now is approaching 900 posts in the last four years.
Bob Bisno was booted out of the mix and he has since gone both personally bankrupt and his business has also gone bankrupt. This wasn't the first time for Bob and it probably won't be the last, I suppose.
iStar Financial and some of the 'players' from older plans for Ponte Vista finally looked and listened and suffered the economic downturns of the last several years and now they have come up with this newest plan.
The plan involves building 1,135 condominium units. None of the units are planned to be exclusively Seniors only units.
iStar Financial claims they would NOT utilize rights to build a project with a density bonus that would allow for up to 35% more units, that could bring the total number of units up to 1,532.
Councilwoman Janice Hahn called me yesterday with some of the details and she said she would try to work with staff and others to seek a way to prevent iStar Financial and any future owners of the Development from using the density bonus provisions.
I was quoted in today's South Bay Daily Breeze.
STOP THE PRESSES! I just found the first No on P mailer and I will address that in a future post!
There are still many in the community who basically demand that the Ponte Vista at San Pedro property remain with its current zoning of R1, allowing for only single-family detached housing on lots of not less than 5,000 square feet, being built.
After hearing what I feel I heard in Ms. Hahn's voice yesterday, I very highly doubt that will happen.
My current consideration about the number of units for Ponte Vista is based on the housing density at the closest large condominium development to Ponte Vista.
The Gardens sits on 80 acres of land in San Pedro and the 1,100-units there have residents who can access either Western Avenue OR Gaffey Street easily.
That would not be the same for any resident of Ponte Vista. They will only have Western Avenue to ingress and egress the Ponte Vista site.
Although I feel the owners of the land could make some profit building up to 429 houses using the existing zoning, I doubt they would and I think there is now enough time distance from the older plans and sight distance by folks hating the blight in the area, to consider more than 429 units.
Keeping to an equivalent housing density as The Gardens, I feel no more than 831-units should be built at Ponte Vista at San Pedro.
I very much doubt that my wishes will come true but I am not as opposed to 1,135 as I would be with any higher number.
I am sad that some housing specifically designed and built for seniors is not included in these new plans. All the senior housing in San Pedro is full and the third tallest building in San Pedro is a Senior Housing building.
The two sticking points I can initially see as potential real roadblocks to these newest plans are traffic and the density bonus potential.
Should the density bonus issue not get settled to where iStar Financial or any future developer/owner remain allowed to have a density bonus, that would be a sticking point that quite a bit more opposition would come with this new plan than what I would expect if the density bonus was not allowed for iStar Financial or any future developer/owner.
It is going to take some study by all sides and probably some court ruling before the new plans are brought before the Los Angeles City Council for approval, I feel.
By far for everyone, including all of us who live in the east side of Rancho Palos Verdes, the impacts on traffic along Western Avenue has been and will always be the single most important issue in determining the size, support, and opposition to anything new being built at Ponte Vista.
In the coming months during the time new traffic studies are done and a new Environmental Impact Report is prepared, I will share on my Ponte Vista blog all the information I have already gathered about traffic and all the new information that will come in.
Now that we have news about numbers of units proposed for Ponte Vista I need to remind everyone that both the original Ponte Vista at San Pedro E.I.R. and the Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project/Marymount Plan E.I.R. did not take into account the other's traffic studies and were independent of each other.
Also, since nothing was new at Ponte Vista, the Marymount E.I.R. contained no numbers or even potential numbers as to the increased number of daily trips for Ponte Vista.
On the other hand, during the time the Ponte Vista E.I.R. had its traffic studies done, they were done prior to the traffic studies for Marymount's expansion and therefore the added daily trips for Marymount were not counted in the Ponte Vista E.I.R.
With the new Ponte Vista traffic study, we should see the traffic study numbers for Marymount calculated in the new studies. This could be very important numbers for both Marymount and Ponte Vista.
What is striking for me during the last 10 years that Marymount has sought approval for its expansion and the five years since I first learned about Ponte Vista is that one entity finally listened to the community.
I found that it took many long and hard hours, many days of study, quite a few face to face meetings with community members and late evenings dealing with both Marymount and Ponte Vista to realize that the Ponte Vista developers finally look, learned, listened, and offered the community a plan that just might find ultimate passage with support from the majority of the communities nearby the site.
As I remember what I have received recently from Marymount and remembering the court cases, the anger from one City Councilman, and the quite obvious divisions growing in the Rancho Palos Verdes community, I am pleased that iStar Financial and the development team of Ponte Vista at San Pedro is working hard WITH the community and NOT AGAINST local residents like we sadly see with Measure P, The Marymount Plan.
All anyone has to do is look at the histories of both projects. One started out with a greedy developer demanding from the community something the community was not willing to give up.
The other also seems to have some greed involved but has not been willing to look towards the community and ultimately respect residents who would be so greatly impacted.
If there is any better sign of a development changing direction in a positive way compared to a development growing farther away from the community and becoming more negative on an almost daily basis, I don't know where else to look other than The Marymount Plan and its Measure P.
Dr. Brophy and the other members of the Board of Trustees of Marymount College now have a template to look at on how not working with the community can lead to bankruptcy and how working with the community AND making changes in very flawed plans, might lead to a successful Ponte Vista at San Pedro that the entire community could work to support and have a new neighborhood established that brings folks together rather than tearing them apart.
Sadly, there are lessons here that Marymount will probably ignore.
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