Beach Cities Health Campus Versus 'Age in Place'

The Beach Reporter,

No responsible agency should proceed with a project without undertaking a reputable Needs Assessment survey to justify a change in the charter plan that residents support and indeed fund the Board members to adhere to. You have produced no reputable Needs Assessment that you can cite. You put forth that many senior citizens will need these 400 assisted living units, an additional 60 units going to memory care. This is counter-cultural as AARP, that represents the majority of residents 50 years and over, has for decades found that senior citizens much prefer to “age in place” in multi-generational neighborhoods, procuring in-home health assistance as needed, not isolated on a campus that is expected to take $500 million over 15 years to construct. I am one of them.

Additionally, Mr. Tom Bakaly and staff have not been able to establish the cost for a resident to live in his assisted living campus. This suggests that an ordinary, middle-class resident could not afford to live in the proposed assisted living units, so that this is an elitist undertaking that the City of Redondo Beach cannot afford the fiscal burden to provide sewage and infrastructure services to this population on a vastly enlarged campus when the City is already in debt for the cost of employee benefits.

The City is “carrying” these costs already for nine such facilities, with adjacent large facilities already supporting this population.

City services will not be sufficient to protect the children who attend schools adjacent to the BCHD plant: two elementary schools are largely impacted, Beryl Heights and Towers Elementary, one on either side of the campus, Parras Middle School one and a half blocks away, and the youth attending the two high schools east and west of the site. The Prospect Ave, Beryl, and Del Amo Blvd. travel corridors are already a threat to pedestrian traffic. Your EIR must take this into account as the liability is all yours. Your profit motive cannot be offset by this grave consideration to protect our children.

—Mary R. Ewell, Redondo Beach

Torrance Residents Versus Healthy Living Campus.

The following article was published in the 11/7/19 Easy Reader Opinion section. Bob Pinzler is a former Redondo Beach Councilmember. 

Torrance Neighbors Versus Healthy Living Campus

by Bob Pinzler

At about the same time that the South Bay Hospital District was created in the late 1950s, a community of single-family homes was developing just east and down the slope from the property the district had been granted by the voters of the three beach cities. 

This Torrance community, mostly occupied by aerospace engineers and other professionals, remains very much as it was. Most of the residents have lived there for many years and have bonded as one would expect with longtime neighbors. So, when a challenge was presented to them, they did as one would expect. They talked to each other and decided on a response.

Two weeks ago, these Torrance residents decided that they would forcefully oppose the proposed Beach Cities Health District (BCHD) project to build over 400 assisted living units on the property that towers over their community. However, they are faced with a major dilemma. Torrance has no say in the running of the BCHD. Only the three beach cities do.

The problem facing this community is clear. Construction would be taking place on that property for over 15 years. They are downwind from the site. It seems ironic to them that this District, whose mission is promoting healthy outcomes, will be subjecting a neighboring community with a decade and a half of unhealthy air and stressful disruptions to their lives.

Aside from teaming up with people opposed to the project on the Redondo side of the border, the Torrance group has learned a few things that could put a “spanner in the works.” First is that the street that was a primary focus of construction activity, as well as an important entrance to the planned subterranean garage, Flagler Lane, does not belong to Redondo Beach. In fact, even part of the hill upon which the BCHD sits is also owned by Torrance. 

To get around that problem, it has been reported that the BCHD offered Torrance $10,000 for the right of access. Torrance turned it down. Now, the BCHD will have to revise their plan. Does this mean that the Environmental Impact Report, now underway, will need to be revisited, including opening up new public response opportunities? This would set the timetable for this project back many months. Read more…

In addition, the impact on Towers Elementary School, also in the line of debris fallout, would need to be dealt with by the Torrance school board and, possibly, the California Superintendent of Public Instruction. Possibly more delay.

An extra change on the Torrance side is that, in 2020, the city’s Council members will be elected by district. The voting core of one of those districts is the community which will be the most affected by the BCHD project. And, they vote.

The BCHD assisted living project has been problematic from the moment it was first presented to the public. They should revisit their plans and come up with a different process for delivering them from the mismanagement that got them into their financial predicament in the first place.

It is time for them to admit their blunder.

Why We Oppose

The first I heard of the planned Healthy Living Campus in Redondo Beach was when my wife and I went to a hastily scheduled meeting by the Beach Cities Health District to showcase their project and get feedback from nearby residents in the city of Torrance. To the proponents and their consultants, the idea of building a massive 420-unit nursing home on a 30 foot tall bluff, towering over a neighborhood of single family homes and the 15 year construction plan it would require for building and funding sounded reasonable enough but to the 75 or more attendees, a mix of mostly senior citizens, parents and young couples, it sounded utterly absurd. Once the feeling of the inevitability of it all subsided a number of us began to share our frustrations and decided to organize to stop the fortress-like monolith from being built.

Today our fight is just beginning and we know we can’t match the money the opposition is willing to spend to succeed. Countless other communities and nearby neighborhoods find themselves in similar David versus Goliath battles. Their determination and steadfast resolve inspires us. We are organizing a grassroots effort to demand the failing BCHD immediately stop work on the proposed project.

On this website, we have outlined our concerns and are encouraging residents throughout Torrance and Redondo Beach and the South Bay to join together against the development. We will update it often with news and actions to take. It is critical that everyone who will be most affected by the project speak out and demand the Beach Cities Health District stop work on the project. We support responsible development that meets the needs of nearby residents and businesses but this project fails to do that. We also strongly urge the cities leaders of Torrance and Redondo Beach to DENY the BCHD the permits they need to go forward as proposed. The BCHD has no right to subject generations of young people going to school directly downwind of the demolition and construction to 15 years of suffocating dust, noise and other health and traffic risks. The BCHD has no authority to subject nearby residents to the toxic contaminants that the project will cause. This is a unnecessary and unsustainable project that will compromise public health, air quality, the environment, and traffic safety but working together we believe it can be stopped.

To learn more about the BCHD proposal, please read the Notice of Project (NOP) and Environmental Checklist.