San Pedro Ca Development And Redevelopment

The dinner was pure San Pedro: barbecued swordfish, smothered in sauce as the local fishermen prepare it, green beans mixed with mashed potatoes and, of course, the favorite macaroni, mostaccioli . Service was family style. It was Ladies Night Out at the Yugoslav-American Club, and after dinner, the band struck up the seljoncia, a traditional folk dance.

For 23 years, the fight over a breezy hill in San Pedro has pitted preservationists against those who want progress. Knoll Hill, which rises 84 feet above sea level, overlooks Front Street and Harbor Boulevard, and offers sweeping views of the city, the Vincent Thomas Bridge and Los Angeles Harbor. Some San Pedro residents, and the Los Angeles Harbor Department, want to shave down Knoll Hill for a port expansion project. Others want the hill turned into a park.

For 23 years, the fight over a breezy hill in San Pedro has pitted preservationists against those who want progress. Knoll Hill, which rises 84 feet above sea level, overlooks Front Street and Harbor Boulevard, and offers sweeping views of the city, the Vincent Thomas Bridge and Los Angeles Harbor. Some San Pedro residents, and the Los Angeles Harbor Department, want to shave down Knoll Hill for a port expansion project. Others want the hill turned into a park.

There was a time when Edward Ko gazed through the windows of his store, Candy Town, and saw more than a dozen school buses loaded with children. There was a time when the shop, full of novelty and imported candy, was so crowded that customers lined up to get inside. Now, years later, only an occasional customer visits his well-stocked shop. Ko and a few other shop owners are the last survivors at the languishing Ports O' Call Village shopping center in San Pedro.

In San Pedro's downtown business district, where revitalization is underway on 7th Street, large clay pots with newly planted flowers dot the sidewalk. New posters hang in shop windows, inviting people to get reacquainted with the area at a monthly open house. Everyone is invited. Everyone, that is, except the new neighbors. Half a block away, in the back of a converted auto repair shop, the clatter of brown metal folding chairs signals dinner time for a group of homeless people.

Funding for a long-awaited gymnasium in San Pedro's Peck Park has been approved by the City Council. Groundbreaking is expected before the year is over. Plans for the $2.5-million facility have been held up for nearly 24 years, said Barry Glickman, a spokesman for Councilman Rudy Svorinich. Glickman said plans for the gymnasium were approved in the '70s but no funds were available. The council approved $1.

Since San Pedro residents discovered that a homeless shelter is proposed for surplus Navy housing in the middle of a residential area, they have turned their anger into a united front, vowing to halt the project. Homeowners and real estate agents formed a group, Concerned Citizens, just days after they found out that Turner's Technical Institute, a homeless advocacy organization based in South Central, planned to run the shelter.

Gov. Pete Wilson, hoping to keep a highly prized Air Force space division from moving out of state, said Friday that his Administration is finalizing a deal with the military that would allow the construction of more Air Force housing in San Pedro. In a speech to the South Bay Chamber of Commerce in Manhattan Beach, Wilson said he expected the agreement to be completed within a week. Officials said the deal would allow the Air Force to build 250 housing units at San Pedro's Angels Gate Park.

City officials have unveiled a master plan for Angels Gate Park in San Pedro that would replace the complex of former military barracks now occupied by the California Conservation Corps and the Angels Gate Cultural Center with two soccer fields. The plan, which is a draft and may be changed after a public hearing, also calls for new landscaping, picnic areas and other improvements.

A City of Los Angeles application for special state tax incentives for harbor-area businesses is among five finalists for three spots in a state program. If the city is successful, Wilmington and eastern San Pedro, including the waterfront, will be designated a state Employment and Economic Incentive Area. The designation carries a variety of tax benefits to new and expanding businesses in the area in an effort to create jobs.

Struggling Ports O' Call Village shopping center in San Pedro may get a make-over now that a citizens committee has recommended a well-known real estate company to oversee a substantial redevelopment project. The 45-acre project includes the half-vacant Ports O' Call complex as well as the former Unocal tank farm nearby on 22nd Street--both of which are owned by the Port of Los Angeles.

After three long years of community meetings, furious lobbying and heated debates, officials thought they finally were ready to start development on surplus Navy land in San Pedro and Harbor City. Two adjacent parcels were to be transformed into a shining research facility for Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, an elite private school and dormitories for another school, plus housing for homeless and low-income families. But that was before a tiny blue butterfly fluttered into the picture.

Officials have moved forward with a plan to launch another urban renewal project for this seaside community's quaint but stagnant downtown area--but rejected a plea by some community leaders to include Port of Los Angeles turf. The Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency Commission voted unanimously last week to establish a study area for the proposed Pacific Corridor Redevelopment Project, the first step in a program to spruce up the area.

After a heated debate about the need for affordable homes, the Los Angeles City Council on Friday decided to turn over surplus Navy housing in the San Pedro area to a host of new tenants, including a Catholic college and an expensive private school in Rolling Hills. The council, in an 8-4 vote, approved a controversial plan to establish civilian uses for a parcel of 545 homes that once housed military personnel assigned to the now-closed Long Beach Naval Shipyard.

After a lengthy discussion and public testimony, a hopelessly divided Los Angeles City Council agreed Tuesday to postpone a controversial decision on the use of surplus military property in San Pedro. The council is faced with the decision over the 545 mostly middle-class homes because the Navy families moved out nearly two years ago after the closing of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard.

Two Los Angeles housing tracts declared surplus military property in 1997 have touched off a fierce debate over their future, pitting neighbor against neighbor in a battle over competing public policy goals. The Navy families who lived in these Harbor City and San Pedro neighborhoods moved out nearly two years ago, after the closing of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. They left behind 545 middle-class homes, sitting on wide, curving streets near Los Angeles Harbor.

After a heated debate about the need for affordable homes, the Los Angeles City Council on Friday decided to turn over surplus Navy housing in the San Pedro area to a host of new tenants, including a Catholic college and an expensive private school in Rolling Hills. The council, in an 8-4 vote, approved a controversial plan to establish civilian uses for a parcel of 545 homes that once housed military personnel assigned to the now-closed Long Beach Naval Shipyard.

After lobbying for 25 years, residents in the Peck Park area of San Pedro are finally getting a gymnasium. Ground has already been broken for the 12,000-square-foot facility and construction is expected to begin in a month. The $1.2-million gymnasium will come with a full-size basketball court, retractable bleachers and two locker rooms.

In San Pedro's downtown business district, where revitalization is underway on 7th Street, large clay pots with newly planted flowers dot the sidewalk. New posters hang in shop windows, inviting people to get reacquainted with the area at a monthly open house. Everyone is invited. Everyone, that is, except the new neighbors. Half a block away, in the back of a converted auto repair shop, the clatter of brown metal folding chairs signals dinner time for a group of homeless people.

In the next year, $7.3 million in federal funds will be pumped into community development projects in the harbor area, city officials announced Thursday. The federal Housing and Urban Development Department recently allocated the funds for a series of projects in Los Angeles City Councilman Rudy Svorinich's 15th District. The money will be spent on waterfront development, the Pacific Avenue Corridor Project, repairs on the Croatian Cultural Center and the Warner Grand Theater--all in San Pedro.