https://easyreadernews.com/letters-to-the-editor-6-2-22/
Dear ER:
I attended Beach City Health Campus meetings regarding the proposed Health Living Campus even before their summer scoping meetings. These were contrived meetings with heavy-handed promotion of their project. I spoke at one, citing how their overdevelopment ambitions would affect surrounding communities, in particular, the five neighboring schools, two of them elementary schools, Beryl in Redondo Beach, and Towers Elementary School in Torrance. Parras Middle School, and both West and Redondo Union High School students, also, would have to navigate traffic on Prospect to get to school. So this “healthy” living campus only adds to their vulnerability.
There was never an adequate needs assessment to justify this private takeover of public land, only a statistical market analysis based on the increased number of seniors living longer than their predecessors. AARP’s statistics of the overwhelming number of seniors choosing to “age in place” did not deter BCHD’s claims. Their stated target market are those who can afford $12,000 to $14,000 a month, whether they live in the beach cities or not. The median income in the beach cities is $65,000. That means the majority of the campus will be nonresidents of the Beach Cities – in fact, a largely white, privileged class. Yet taxpayers in the Beach Cities are already subsidizing the BCHD through their property taxes.
Granting even a conditional use permit to a for-profit entity is not a fair exchange.This use of land zoned P-CF, for public community usage (a school, a hospital, or police/fire services), justified the 50 year leasing of the school district property where the Kensington Senior facility is. It had some merit because that revenue went directly to the Redondo School District. You can now review that decision based on how much it has cost the city in infrastructure costs. The surrounding neighborhoods have paid the cost through traffic noise.
Mary R. Ewell
Redondo Beach