Residents in a Lonely Fight for Knoll Hill

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. The matter remains unsettled, but debate, which has carried on for decades, has recently taken on new urgency.

“Everything is still on the drawing board, and no final decision has been made,” said Sheila Gonzales, a Harbor Department spokeswoman.

Since 1978, when an environmental impact report was approved for the flattening of Knoll Hill, the Harbor Department began buying property with an eye toward leveling the hill for several projects, including creating more storage space for cargo containers and using the dirt as fill for other harbor projects.

The department had rented out some of the purchased properties, but in 1999 it evicted all renters from the pastoral 24-acre hill and tore down vacant homes. Where once there were 26 houses, just four remain.

Amid the empty space and rubble of a fallen neighborhood, Alice Livermore, 64, still holds fast to her home, which she jokingly calls “Ft. Livermore.”

She just wants to rest, to enjoy her retirement, and to have a moment’s peace from the constant stress of fighting to keep her Knoll Hill home. As a 29-year resident of San Pedro, Livermore has 18 months to go before she pays off her mortgage, so she won’t give up on the fight.

Although there has been a hold on razing the hill, she said she won’t relax her stance until its fate is put in writing.

“I’m sick and tired of them constantly telling me that they will tear the hill down,” Livermore said. “They are destroying the city in the name of progress.”

The dispute has put a strain on her health, she said, but the vocal Livermore, known as the spokeswoman for the hill, said she’s an “old hand at battles.”

She helped her late husband, Charles Livermore, who was legally blind, challenge Social Security laws, she said, to provide benefits for 14,000 blind people and another 10,000 disabled people. He won the case, and as a result, she said, two amendments to Social Security law--Livermore I and Livermore II--bear his name.

Alice Livermore moved to Knoll Hill in 1972 because it was the “closest to a forest” she could find, but since then, the Harbor Department has torn down the trees.

In recent years, the department offered Livermore $170,000 for her home. She wants about $500,000 in compensation because of the difficulty of moving in her condition--she suffers from spinal arthritis--and finding a home comparable in value to her current one.

Over the years, some families died out, but most left because of the hovering threat from the Harbor Department, said Anne Hansford, archivist for the San Pedro Historical Society.

Yellowed newspaper clippings and residents’ memories tell a tale of deep-rooted family life on the hill and a place of historical value. Residents of other hills in San Pedro faced what threatens Knoll Hill and lost. Barton Hill, Nob Hill, Liberty Hill, Vinegar Hill, New Sweden Hill and Mexican Hollywood have all been leveled for city development.

Knoll Hill didn’t get a paved road until 1965, Hansford said. Before that, residents would park at the base and hike up to their homes. That was a fun time for Mona Trejo-Reyes, 38, and her siblings when they were children. She said they would slide down the hill in cardboard boxes and frolic in the mud.

Their father, George Trejo, 78, who has lived on Knoll Hill with his family since 1952, bought his home for $6,000. “My wife and I are getting tired,” he said. “As old as we are, we just want to spend our last days here,” said Trejo, who is retired from the tuna packing business. Trejo doesn’t believe he will live to see a resolution to the debate over the hill.

Perhaps that’s because it has gone on for so long. The proposal covered in the 1978 environmental impact report never got off the ground. But another report was approved in 1997, allowing the possibility of demolishing Knoll Hill to create room for a terminal expansion proposed by China Shipping Holding Co. Strong community opposition helped prompt China Shipping to scrap that proposal.

But flattening the hill for storage space is still a possibility. T. Keith Gurnee, a principal at RRM Design Group, is a consultant brought in by the city to “find a common ground” between the Harbor Department and residents.

“Some of the options include turning Knoll Hill into a state park; reducing the park element and connecting it to a greenbelt with a system of paths; reestablishing housing on it or other land uses; or [taking] a portion of the hill and [using] it as terminal space,” Gurnee said. “We just want to test how the community is going to respond.”

Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) has introduced legislation to turn the hill into a state park.

Livermore supports the park idea. She is willing to give up her home if the hill is turned into something useful for the community.

But there are those who want to see the hill leveled. “They should bulldoze the hill down and make room for cargo and containers instead of trying to save a few Mickey Mouse homes,” said Libby DiBernardo, who has been in San Pedro real estate since 1964. “It’s a harbor, so make it a harbor. We don’t need the homes. They should condemn the whole darn area.”

The Harbor Department has held two workshops to collect community input on Knoll Hill, and it plans two more. One will be at 6:30 p.m. today at Liberty Hill Plaza, 100 W. 5th St., San Pedro.