REGION : Panel Calls for Senior Housing on Navy Land

Housing for senior citizens will be built on 27 acres of surplus Navy property in San Pedro if a group of local residents gets its way.

In a document released recently, the San Pedro Area Reuse Committee said senior housing is the best use of the land at Taper Avenue.

Los Angeles Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr., who represents the harbor district, appointed the committee earlier this year to look at options for military land left vacant in the area.

The committee has been concentrating on the Taper Avenue site, which has been at the center of community debate and concern since an annoucement in January that its 144 housing units would be used for up to 880 homeless people after the Long Beach Naval Station closes this month.

Federal officials approved an application by Turner’s Technical Institute Inc., a South-Central homeless advocacy organization, to run the homeless shelter. The committee plan for senior housing assumes that Turner’s plan will be derailed, secretary Jerry Gaines said. Samuel Theus, Turner’s spokesman, said the institute would consider working with the San Pedro groups. “But it would have to be a program for homeless people,” Theus said.

Under the committee’s plan, the housing would include affordable houses, assisted living, a nursing home, geriatric day care, a recreation center, open space and walking trails. Outreach programs also would operate from the complex. The report says the number of senior citizens in the San Pedro/Wilmington area living in poverty increased 26% between 1980 and 1990.

The recommendations will be discussed at a public hearing Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. in Peck Park Auditorium, 560 N. Western Ave., San Pedro.

In the meantime, the federal department of Health and Human Services is reviewing the homeless shelter plan by Turner’s Institute in light of strong community and political opposition.