Masterplanning! A Vision for San Pedro

by Tony Chavira

The panel's impression is that San Pedro has been stuck in a Kafkaesque work of endless planning. Many things have contributed to this scenario: a lack of cooperation between the port and the community; fear that development will contribute to the notion that San Pedro is a social dumping ground; and concern that development will further destroy the character of the downtown.

- The Urban Land Institute Advisory Services Panel Report, 2002

But this was all before the 2002 ULI Study. Let me tell you the story of a redevelopment area called "The Pacific Corridor" ...

It had always been a pretty well-established maritime community (all the way back to the late 1700s, in fact), but after World War II San Pedro finally received the massive economic boom it needed. The Terminal Island canneries in particular brought tons of workers into the area, and the Pacific Corridor in particular thrived from the local commerce and interesting post-war mix of Hispanic, Asian (in particular, post-internment Japanese who didn't return to live on Terminal Island), white and black culture. The Southern Pacific Railroad stop (1912), the Vincent Thomas Bridge (1963), and containerized shipping helped solidify it as the Port of Los Angeles, and led to the further development of "land bridges" out of the Port. For a while, San Pedro thrived and trucks filled our freeways with goods going out all over the country from it.

But just as the economic boom of World War II helped to solidify the shipbuilding industry in San Pedro, the end of the war ultimately closed down all of the shipyards, ending the upsurge of jobs at the Port of Los Angeles. Beginning with the first set of closings in the late 1970s, the canneries (which came to employ more than 90% of the population of Eastern San Pedro and current Pacific Corridor) shut down in a flurry, eventually leaving only Chicken of the Sea and a large disparity between the number of jobs available and the number of residents in the area. By 2002, there were two distinct political entities in San Pedro: the Port Authority and the City of San Pedro. The City worked to build a formal identity for economic growth, while the Port worked to turn the community into a transient, nebulous one for the same reason.

The ULI was brought in to do their 2002 study for several reasons. First, the Pacific Corridor Redevelopment Plan (which I'll speak about in a moment) was originally a futile effort, where several— in some cases conflicting—plans overlapped, with completely different visions of how the area would be renovated and where exactly the money would derive. Worse, conflicting redevelopment projects were creating committees and organizations that almost never coordinated their efforts. Second, the City of San Pedro knew that it needed a resurgence of development, but city officials feared the loss of the "artist colony" community that had slowly grown around the area. Third (and most important), over the years an underlying sense of frustration regarding the Port of Los Angeles had been brewing in the City of San Pedro. The ULI report details it pretty clearly: the city of San Pedro felt that the Port was indebted to them for keeping the community a transient one. The City dreaded feeling that San Pedro was an economic center where commerce arrived and departed right away, effectively killing any chances of developing any real local culture, personality or wealth. It was a development Catch-22: to create an identity that developed around the Ports but didn't necessarily incorporate the Ports' "ship-in ship out" schedule; to give culture to a community while not stifling any chances that it would develop a culture organically.

Since the ULI report, the Community Redevelopment Agency in Los Angeles, the San Pedro community, and the Ports of Los Angeles have been whipping themselves into serious shape. CRA-LA's 2002 redevelopment plan for the Pacific Corridor, based on a study funded primarily by the Urban Land Institute and driven forward by political proponents of good, coordinated planning, is one of the most comprehensive, actionable redevelopment plans that CRA-LA has ever adapted.

Vincent Thomas Bridge

If you've been reading my articles, you know that I consider a comprehensive, bold, and deliberately semi-ambiguous vision statement the biggest asset that a redevelopment plan can have. Why deliberately ambiguous? Well, friends, when the overall vision for a project is deliberately ambiguous, it allows room for changes to be made as years go by, while keeping the original intentions of the plan in mind. This way, you don't see changes today that are offputting or completely obsolete in ten years. There's another reason that a vision statement should be deliberately ambiguous: so that everyone who is working on the development plan (planners, developers, architects, builders, local industry leaders, patrons, the Port Authority, AND the community of San Pedro) can all understand the vision and what their role in it is. Check out CRA-LA's Design Standards for San Pedro and you'll notice how a strong initial vision can incorporate lots of amazing planning coordination.

Since the adoption of this plan, we've already seen noticeable strides in the right direction for both the City of San Pedro and the Port Authority. The 5-Year Implementation Plan (which begins this year and ends in 2012) has begun to move along quickly with coordinated government effort, and we can see a surge of project areas and development opportunities on CRA-LA's website. Already San Pedro residents can see the receptive approach that the City is taking, opening up space and advertising its plans for development along Pacific Avenue. I really want to see the area around the Warner Grand Theater revitalized and "greened"; luckily for me, it's already pretty high on the list of priorities.

Of course, this plan only works if the government (City of San Pedro, City of Los Angeles, Port Authority, and Board of Harbor Commissioners) and committed developers stick to their guns and the vision outlined by the 2002 Redevelopment Plan. Seems to me they're off to a good, ambitious start, and I'd recommend that we stay optimistic. Remember, my super-liberal readership, development is a good thing most of the time. It just needs the research to back it up.