Panel OKs San Pedro Rezoning Proposal : Development: Measure that would exclude apartment and condominium development from Old San Pedro is rejected.

A San Pedro citizens committee Wednesday night approved a detailed rezoning proposal, ending for now debate on the most contested section of a long-awaited community plan.

The proposal, which downzones much of the community, is largely the same as the one presented in January to the San Pedro Community Plan Advisory Committee by its zoning subcommittee.

The committee rejected an amendment that would have excluded apartment and condominium development from the Old San Pedro area. That issue had caused angry exchanges between committee members at a meeting last month.

In approving the plan--based on a block-by-block review of the seaside community’s zoning--the committee limited comment among members and the public on specifics of the proposal, acknowledging that its decisions are not set in stone.

“As (Ulysses S.) Grant said, ‘I am prepared to fight this out all winter,’ ” said Noah Modisett, chairman of the advisory committee. “But we all know this is going to be changed, and we need to move ahead.”

When the community plan is finished--including a proposed historic zone and a specific plan for the downtown business area--it will go to Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores and then to the Planning Department, which must hold public hearings.

The limited debate at Wednesday’s session was considerably toned down from the contentiousness in San Pedro about these issues, which include preserving historic homes, encouraging construction of low-cost senior housing and saving the Barton Hill area for low-income residents.

Many residents and committee members backed off previous hard-line positions on those issues after Modisett passed around a letter from a city planner praising the committee’s work.

“The important fact is that your committee has given us a good point to start this process,” wrote Don K. Taylor of the Planning Department. “The proposal must still go through a long public hearing process. The decision will eventually be made by the City Council. You should expect that even your best proposals may be subject to modification as we hear from the public during this process.”

The committee was appointed by Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores in 1988 to help guide future growth in an area of Los Angeles that has undergone dramatic growth and development in the past decade.

Zoning recommendations approved Wednesday include:

Permitting developers in most of Old San Pedro--the neighborhood that runs from 10th to 21st streets between Palos Verdes Street and Pacific Avenue--to build three units on a lot, subject to “certain design standards to be established by the committee.”

Substantially increasing the density allowed on the block bounded by 8th, 9th, Centre and Mesa streets, but “only if the property is developed for senior citizens.”

Zoning Rancho San Pedro, a city-owned, low-income housing project, for single-family housing as a way of preserving the project. Any other type of development would be subject to a public hearing process. It is now zoned mostly for duplexes.

Allowing commercial and manufacturing development on Harbor Boulevard from 3rd Street north to the Harbor Freeway on-ramp to discourage development of housing there.

The committee, in a 12-5 vote, defeated an amendment to the plan that would have virtually excluded development of anything but single-family homes in the Old San Pedro area after nearly an hour of discussion.

Committee member Doug Shepardson proposed the amendment last month, saying single-family zoning would encourage the preservation of older houses. He said that under the recommendations accepted Wednesday night, it would be more profitable for developers to raze older homes for apartments and condominiums. In recent years, hundreds of old homes have been torn down by developers attracted to the area by soaring land values.

Opponents of the amendment argued that many older houses in the area are dilapidated, and said new, controlled development of condominiums would be the best way to improve the neighborhood.

Despite the amendment’s defeat, most preservation advocates cautiously endorsed a wording change that ensures the committee will determine design and setback restrictions for any condominium development in the area.

In addition, some preservationists found a grain of victory in the defeat because some of the amendment’s opponents had begun to speak openly of the importance of preserving single-family homes in San Pedro.

“Now they are all talking about historic preservation. There is a definite change in the tone of this committee,” said Bill Manuel, a local lawyer and preservation advocate. “That’s a victory of sorts.”

Preservationists hope to create a historic preservation zone in Old San Pedro to set architectural and landscaping requirements for the area. Manuel, who is chairman of the historic preservation subcommittee, will present recommendations for the establishment of the historic zone at the committee’s April meeting.

Though the committee seemed content to approve the entire zoning plan in the interest of moving forward, some members said the proposal to downzone the Barton Hill neighborhood to allow only single-family homes could push out lower-income residents.

“If we change the zoning in that neighborhood (to allow only single-family homes), we will gentrify the area. We will place people who live there out of the market so they cannot live there,” said committee member Armando Sanchez.

Sanchez said the proposed change could prevent the residents in the mostly Latino area from building rental units on their property, which they do to supplement their income, and said it would also encourage its “yuppification.”

“We don’t want to change the . . . area so much that we don’t recognize it 20 years from now,” said Barton Hill resident Nadine Janisee.

But Leron Gubler, chairman of the zoning subcommittee and executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said the proposed zoning changes would protect the Barton Hill area because it would trigger a public hearing process for any multiunit development.

Having put the hotly contested zoning questions behind it, the advisory committee will meet again in April to take up discussion of the Historic Preservation Overlay Zone and other issues.