San Pedro Groups Prepare to Clash Over Downzoning

San Pedro residents and developers are preparing for their first major battle over downzoning since 1980, when the San Pedro Community Plan reduced growth in the area.

At a public hearing Tuesday evening, both sides will offer views on a proposal by the San Pedro Community Plan Advisory Committee to temporarily halt residential apartment construction in San Pedro.

Noah Modisset, chairman of the 25-member committee, said a proposed interim ordinance would halt development for at least a year while the committee seeks new zoning guidelines to mollify residents who say their neighborhoods have been ravaged by shoe box-shaped apartment complexes built where single-family homes once stood.

However, developers say such an ordinance would threaten their livelihood. They say it is unfair for the community to take away their construction rights for any period of time.

The committee, made up strictly of San Pedro residents, was appointed by Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores nearly two months ago to examine the zoning laws that govern development in the ethnically diverse community.

Mario Juravich, an aide to the councilwoman, said Flores would evaluate any proposals made by the committee before presenting them to the entire City Council.

Flores “appointed the committee to find out how the community feels about the issue, but she will thoroughly investigate all of their proposals to be sure their suggestions are reasonable,” he said.

Modisset said the committee is anxious to hear from both sides.

“Our job is to listen to what the people in this community want,” Modisset said after a committee planning session Wednesday at Cabrillo Marina. “We want to get the full scope of the problems and concerns of the residents, so we are going to give people from all sides of this argument an opportunity to speak.”

Representatives from the two camps said they intend to do just that.

Shanaz Ardehali-Kordich, a member of Flores’ committee and head of the San Pedro Downzoning Committee, said she has gathered more than 5,000 signatures from residents who favor the moratorium on all apartment construction.

She said residents feel that the moratorium should be imposed until Flores’ committee “has gone block by block and street by street to determine what types of zoning the neighborhoods can accommodate.”

Ardehali-Kordich, whose grass-roots group was formed two months ago, added: “We have to save this community from being overrun with those ugly stucco boxes.”

However, a group of San Pedro real estate agents and developers, who met for the first time last week, said they will speak out against the interim control ordinance because it will put the area in “economic limbo.”

Rick Edson, a member of the newly formed Citizens for the Betterment of San Pedro, said a moratorium on apartment construction would “put a lot of people out of work and leave a lot of investors bankrupt.”

He added: “Builders do not tend to be people with large cash reserves, and without the ability to build apartments on their land, many of them will not be able to make the mortgage payments or pay the taxes on the properties.”

Ardehali-Kordich disagreed, saying the developers’ group has a large cash arsenal.

“We are fighting big bucks,” she said angrily. “When the developers talk about fighting an issue, they all pull out their checkbooks. We can’t do that.”

After Tuesday’s hearing, Modisset said, his 25-member committee will meet to evaluate the public’s testimony and to vote on the interim ordinance.