San Pedro Ca

Donald Scott spent much of his youth attending services at old St. Peter's Episcopal Church, which now sits in the Harbor View Memorial Cemetery in San Pedro. So it saddens him that the tiny, white wood-shingled building constructed 125 years ago and deemed a historical landmark would end up in the condition it is now. The church, which has been locked for more than 20 years, long ago fell into disrepair and has become a target for vandals. "I hate to go into this church," said Scott, 78, whose two older sisters are buried on the cemetery grounds.

After 10 years of contentious discussions, the Los Angeles Harbor Commission is expected to vote today on a $1.2-billion project designed to transform the San Pedro waterfront into a vibrant commercial district. The action would bring to a close a master-planning process that some in the seaside community thought would never end. But the struggles over what should arise along 400 acres available for development are just getting started. The project calls for replacing the ailing Ports O' Call Village tourist spot with up to 300,000 square feet of new restaurants and shops and a 75,000-square-foot conference center.

The boarded-up duplexes line a stretch of Western Avenue in San Pedro -- decaying relics of an era when the Navy needed housing for its Long Beach shipyard workers. A decade after the yard closed, the property is now home only to a handful of goats brought in to keep down the weeds.