06/24/2002 - A note from Chris Cagle, Founder of "Citizens for a Vote..." regarding a recent visit to the AES Plant...
At the last group meeting on July 13th I mentioned that AES wanted to give us a presentation but they only had room for 25 people. Basically, the people at the meeting signed up for it. The AES meeting took place on the 17th and here is a summary of what was discussed.
Note - none of this is approved or final - it's all just talk.
The plan for the AES site includes 1,138 units/houses. This breaks down in the following way: Condos = 700, Houses = 20, Lofts = 101, and Town homes = 317. Alan Mackenzie told me they were going to be working on a plan that had no condos and just townhomes and houses and less overall total units.
All the housing will be built all around the AES plant, sort of in a horse shoe pattern, starting in the first year with about 200-250 units on the south side by the Salvation Army. After that is complete then they will move on to the next phase, the total build out would take about 4-5 years.
Regarding the 90-100 million needed to prepare the AES site. They are telling us that they won't have to ask the city for any of this money. It will take about 6-7 million initially to prepare the first phase over behind the Salvation Army, AES will fund that themselves, then once those homes are built and sold, the profits will fund the next clean up and building phase and so on until it is complete.
The designs they had of the towns houses reminded me of row housing seen in San Francisco, where they have 4-5 steps up to the front door, the styles they showed us looked a little too hi tech for most of us at the meeting. People didn't think it expressed enough beach city charm. In fact, the styles didn't look like anything we have around here. Their design for each townhouse was 3 stories high.
Regarding the 20 homes AES is proposing. They would be located across the street on the West side of Harbor Blvd. where the Sea Lab is currently. The Sea Lab is on the corner of Harbor Blvd. and Yacht Club Way. AES owns about one acre there and wants to build 20 homes with about 2,500 sqft each. These homes would be built to the property line or they might have about 5 feet between them, with a 15 foot set back for the front yard. No one really like the idea.
AES was however willing to move the Sea Lab to another location by the Salvation Army, so the Sea Lab won't be closing.
Regarding density, remember how the council repeatedly told us that they were not going to build to 55 units per acre? Well, the AES plan had several areas that were 55 units per acre - just like we thought. The average density was 30 units per acre. We told them we didn't want anything at 55 units per acre.
To give you an example of density, are you familiar with the houses on the Avenues in South Redondo? Avenue B, C, D, E, etc. Those lots are about 6,000 square feet each. There is 43,560 square feet in an acre, so divide 43,560 into 6,000 and you get 7.26 houses per acre, if you factor in a street, then maybe 5 or 6 houses per acre.
This would be the density (5-6) you would ask for if you want a neighborhood like the Avenues. The density in the Village condo area is about 38-45 units per acre. There are about 900 total units in the Village. Current density allowed in Redondo is 35.
AES also wants to build a 60 foot wall completely around the sides and back of the power plant. Everyone was surprised about this. The idea is so that the new residents won't be able to see the yard of the power plant and the wall would reduce the noise. A 60 foot wall would be about as tall as the Crown Plaza Hotel. I don't know what to think about this yet.
We have heard many times from the council that "the power plant must go". I think most people assume that this means the buildings will be removed - No. Regarding the building stretching from the Whaling wall to Herondo street, which is an 80 foot high cement building, they plan to convert this building to residential and remodel it, but not tear it down. Their design for this job didn't not look very good, it looked like another hi tech building. This building might also included some office space along with the proposed 101 loft units.
Chris