Potential Headaches at the Port
A few articles regarding issues in the port area.First the LA Times brought us this doozy about safety of the Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Draw Bridge, a major passage of port traffic between Terminal Island and Long Beach.
L.A. Port Span Still at Quake Risk -- The bridge is one of 16 the state hasn't yet retrofitted or replaced since the Oakland and Sylmar temblors showed their weakness.The second is brought to us from the LA Business Journal:
By Hector Becerra and Jia-Rui Chong, Times Staff Writers
Almost 16 years after the Loma Prieta earthquake collapsed an elevated freeway in Oakland, killing 43 people, the state has spent $2.4 billion to strengthen the vast majority of bridges it had identified as most vulnerable to failure.
But 16 of the 2,194 spans have yet to be retrofitted, including the landmark Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Draw Bridge — a lifeline for port traffic between Terminal Island and Long Beach.
Tying it all together -- The traffic is growing, the facilities are growing larger and multiplying in number, and one major traffic artery used isn't safe to an earthquake. Tick Tock...Tick Tock...
On a happy note, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services assigned its 'AA' rating to the Los Angeles Harbor Department. More money to build with. Just what they need!
And what to do with the money? From Business Wire:
SAN PEDRO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 12, 2005--The Port of Los Angeles and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have released the Notice of Preparation (NOP)/Notice of Intent (NOI) for the proposed "From Bridge to Breakwater" waterfront development in San Pedro.
The NOP/NOI kicks off a public comment period and an environmental review process that is expected to take 18 months to complete. During the public comment period, which ends on October 28, the public will have an opportunity to review and comment on the project description, attend three public "scoping" meetings and workshops, and submit comments or questions they want addressed during the Environmental Impact Report (EIR)/Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) analysis.
Posted by Anonymous @ 9/13/2005 05:40:00 AM
5 Comments:
Bridge to Breakwater, with it's 700+ million price tag, is gearing up to quickly and staggeringly gentrify one of the city's most underdeveloped areas. After years of meetings, the community still has no real idea what is going to happen, and a feeling that they have no control over this project.
I'd bet that 90% of the mjority Latino community in Central San Pedro has almost no idea what's going to happen to their rents. Why one of the biggest development projects in the city seems to be totally under the radar is beyond me. Do the Port and its getrification happy friends get to do whatever they they want as long as the containers full of Tickle Me Elmos keep coming in?
Meanwhile, Wilmington continues to be inundated with trucks, air pollution and a declining quality of life. Antonio, concentrate on Wilmington, not San Pedro.
anoymous at 12 p.m.,
If you drive around this county enough, and know the real estate market, you'll see that L.A. is going to turn into a sort of Paris: the closer to the important bits you get, the more it will cost to live.
The worst parts of town will be the ones least served by any government services and east served by public infrastructure. That is: the new ghettos will be in the desert.
Sorry to blurt this out, because I feel the same way you do - but there is too much money to be made in gentrification, and it leaves areas looking too nice, to be stopped.
The project is hardly under the radar. Aside from public meetings, there's a whole downtown SP officefront with the plans on display. Plus websites (the project's, the port's, the Army Corps of Engineers).
Development in California is, by law, a very, VERY open process. But you'll all need to take some initiative and educate yourself. We live in a world of public records - no one can pull one over on you unless you hand them a sheet.
Rents aren't going to spike immediately.
And as far "the Port and its gentrification happy friends" promoting Tickle Me Elmos - this development doesn't have much to do with making the port attractive to commercial shipping - that falls to other development.
Though - frankly - perhaps a remedial civics and/or economics class is in order for the San Pedrans and Angelenos to get why we need the port.
CD - Yes, there are lots of people in the know on the project, but unfortunately they are vastly outnumbered by the population that has no idea what a planning process is. You don't promote a planning process to inform your most informed stakeholder, you have to promote to the least informed, most out of the loop individual. And that just hasn't been done.
Just printing the little postcard the Port mails to inform people of meetings in Spanish isn't enough. The Port needs to engage the majority, not ignore them, and in Central San Pedro that majority is Latino. Outside of Port and City staffers, I haven't seen a lot of brown in these meetings (not that watching a bunch of white people decide the future of something in San Pedro is unusual), and that right there tells me that something is not being done right.
As to gentrification starting. Sorry, but it has already begun. I got a tour of a $2500 apartment on Pacific Avenue last week. Rents for many storefronts in downtown Pedro have jumped in the past year. People have had the buildings they rent in sold and had their rents double. Regardless of your position on gentrification, it's definitely starting to have an effect on Downtown.
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