VIA EMAIL TO CITY CLERK FOR BLUE FOLDERING AND U.S. FIRST CLASS MAIL October 4, 2023
Mayor & City Council
[SBCCOG Member]
[Address]
Re: Request for [City of X’s] Support for Hawthorne Routing of the Metro CLine Extension to equitably deliver growing economic, job centers Dear Honorable [City of X] Mayor and Council:
Based on the compelling reasons provided below, we write asking for the [City of X’s] support of the Metro C-Line extension via Alternative 3, the Hawthorne Elevated alignment. As you may know, the L.A. County Metro Board is expected to render a decision on its Locally Preferred Alternative for the routing of the extension. We kindly request that the [City of X] (1) write a letter in support of Redondo Beach and Lawndale’s support for the Hawthorne Elevated alternative, and (2) vote in favor of the Hawthorne Elevated alternative as the South Bay Cities Council of Government’s Transportation Subcommittee, Steering Committee and Executive Board meetings.
Our Mayor and City Council have unanimously expressed our preference for the Hawthorne Elevated Routing of the C-Line Extension to Torrance. Routed that way, the C-Line would stop in front of the South Bay Galleria, at Hawthorne and Artesia Blvds.
L Catteron, the real estate arm of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey (LVMH) is readying to invest $500 million into a renovation of the that will bring jobs in retail and restaurants, a hotel and over 300 new apartments (including 20% affordable) at the corner of Artesia and Hawthorne Blvd.
The Metro Board’s prior success in Culver City with the E-Line (formerly Exposition Line) stands as a model for economic achievement that could be realized by Cities via smart Metro planning along Hawthorne Blvd. The E-Line Ivy Station has attracted the strongest employers, including Apple, Amazon and buildings designed by Gensler.
Hawthorne Blvd. at Artesia Blvd. has not reached anything close to its full potential for economic and housing development that could be achieved with a C-Line station there.
The success of the South Bay Social District and the C-Line Extension to Torrance are mutually dependent on collocating next to one another along Hawthorne Blvd. In addition, routing the C-Line Extension along Hawthorne could open the door to eliminating the freight train running through Lawndale’s green belt (aka the Metro City of Redondo Beach October 4, 2023
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ROW), securing more open space and a potential bike path, furthering our shared goal of a greener and more connected region.
For these reasons, as detailed below, we ask for your moral support of your South Bay COG brethren, the Cities of Redondo Beach and Lawndale by advocating to the Metro Board for the Hawthorne Elevated alignment of the C-Line Extension.
I. The Hawthorne Elevated Option is superior to the ROW Options (At-Grade and Trenched) in all regards except bottom line cost, which should not drive monumental generational investments.
L Catterton, the real-estate arm of LVMH, is in the process of investing nearly half a billion dollars in a mixed retail, 300 inclusionary apartment units, office space, and a 150-room hotel at the intersection that would serve as the new Redondo Beach stop for the Hawthorne Elevated Option. Between the mall and other uses, L Catterton projects about 750 new, permanent jobs to come to the site. Only the Hawthorne Elevated Option would connect members of the MLK Jr. Community Hospital community at the Willowbrook - Rosa Parks Station to all of the economic, family, and medical centers along Hawthorne Blvd. and Artesia Boulevard, another major economic corridor in Redondo Beach.
The Metro Board should seize this monumental, once-in-a-generation, opportunity to garner high dual direction riders by aligning the C-Line extension down the most utile routing.
Just as Metro recently experienced major success, and increases in ridership with its Regional Connector Transit Project, which efficiently gets people to where they want to be in a LA County on one seat, C-Line Extension Hawthorne Elevated Alternative would achieve the same objective.
The Hawthorne Elevated Option would also deliver residents from Redondo Beach, Lawndale, Torrance, and Hawthorne conveniently to the Crenshaw/LAX Transit Project.
If, however, the C Line is extended into our residential neighborhood along the ROW, the C Line would not serve as a central hub to move the masses efficiently to LAX. We should not allow government to spend hundreds of millions of dollars improving LAX and installing a people mover, on the left hand, only to extend the C Line in a manner that fails to complement the LAX efforts or maximize ridership.
In addition, Metro would achieve its mission of a “holistic, equitable, and welcoming” transit community” by selecting the Hawthorne Elevated Alternative. An occupied transit train is much more comfortable for passengers in the evening or early morning than a deserted one with high vacancy. Ridership is also important for the efficient disposition of tax dollars. The Hawthorne Elevated Option is forecasted to have 35% higher ridership than any ROW options; it’s easy to understand why. The ROW delivers Angelinos to a residential neighborhood through a residential neighborhood. The Hawthorne Elevated alternative would show riders that they are moving faster than the City of Redondo Beach October 4, 2023
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logjammed traffic on the adjacent 405, then take them down the Hawthorne Blvd. commercial corridor to the new South Bay Social District.
The “Hybrid” option, which includes trenching under 170th St. and 182nd St., has a cost of $2.23 billion. The cost difference between the Hybrid and the Hawthorne Elevated is too narrow in a generational investment to justify selecting the lesser utile, lower ride Hybrid alternative.
The City of Redondo Beach is united behind Hawthorne Elevated Option since it addresses many of our residents’ concerns regarding noise, vibration, resident/child safety, and other factors. The route also provides an expeditious, speedy route to the Torrance Transit Center, which would likely bolster its use at a time of general Metro ridership decline. The Hawthorne Elevated Option along Hawthorne Boulevard would also bring life to the C-Line, revitalize local businesses through higher visibility to a diverse ridership, and encourage continued development of a real destination for riders.
II. The City stands with our neighbors in Lawndale against the inequitable ROW options.
That the Metro ROW runs through neighborhoods rather than down commercial corridor is a relic of a inequitable history. We cannot stand idly by while an inequitable decision to continue to run a train twice a day down one of the few greenspaces in Lawndale is inequitably compounded by running two more trains every ten minutes and eviscerating all of the open green space on Lawndale’s portion of the ROW.
We are also very concerned for our mixed-income senior residents at the Breakwater Village. Breakwater Village was built along the Metro ROW in the early 2000’s. It boasts 191 units covenanted for seniors. It includes 20 affordable units, including Section 8 housing. The same is true for the mixed-income residents of the Ruxton Place and Ruxton Ridge, that are home to 27 and 28 units, respectively.
In 2021, Shell’s drilling on the Metro ROW created a sinkhole in close proximity to these sites, and even caused a sinkhole on the Ruxton property. For over a year that sinkhole was fenced off; where residents of the affordable units there did not have regular access to their front doors because the conditions. The land subsidence that occurred at Ruxton Place is merely symptomatic of the potential, serious hazards that could arise from heavy machinery and construction on the ROW so close to pre-existing, heavily concentrated and weighty residential developments. To date, Metro has not articulated confidence that the geology on the ROW would support the C Line to be extended with no damaging effect on the heavy residential developments adjacent to the ROW.
The DEIR has concluded that the ROW options will have significant unavoidable noise impacts for the ongoing operations at those alignments. Construction of either ROW Option will have significant unavoidable impacts on residents related to both noise and vibration. The multi-year timeline needed to build the light rail within feet of where many of these neighboring residents sleep nightly exacerbates the impacts of construction, City of Redondo Beach October 4, 2023
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leaving alone operation. The negative impact that this will have on so many lives in our City, including our seniors’ and individuals utilizing affordable housing programs, simply cannot be understated.
Fortunately there is a much better alternative. Residents of Torrance, Redondo and Lawndale could be insulated from unavoidable noise, vibration and land subsidence impacts when the C-Line is routed along the 405 Freeway and in the median of the super wide Hawthorne Blvd., per the Hawthorne Elevated alignment.
Our residents have calculated that any ROW option would run trains 20 hours a day within 50 feet of 1,652 families, including 191 seniors at Breakwater Village, and 100 seniors at Harmony Court. By contrast, The Hawthorne Elevated route would affect less than half that number, and from a far greater distance. With the concerns to the impacts to the quality of life and safety/security of more than 1000 residential households along the ROW Options, the City implores that Metro not move forward with any of the ROW Options.
III. There are numerous other concerns raised by our residence.
The following are concerns from Redondo Beach Residents regarding the ROW option.
Destruction to property (from Lawndale to the Southern ROW in Redondo Beach):
a. Residents at Condon Ave., east of ROW, are 25’ below the current BNSF tracks with less than 30’ of separation distance. They are vulnerable to catastrophic accidents and have already experienced a mud slide/oil spill event. Metro’s trains would run at high speeds directly adjacent to those properties and tower over their backyards atop a massive wall.
b. Residents on Ruxton Lane, west of the ROW share close proximity with the BNSF line and will be even closer when the freight line is moved further west.
Properties have shown physical damage to both indoor and outdoor walls, indicating existing structural damage due to train travel already exists. The three complexes, Breakwater Village, Ruxton Place, and Ruxton Ridge, represent both young families and elderly, the most vulnerable Redondo Beach residents. Their displacement would be devastating to our community.
c. The Pacific Crest Cemetery backs the ROW on its west side between Grant and 182nd. Trains running every ten minutes would be destructive to the cemetery business. Train stations use loud speakers to announce arrivals and departures, including a well-recognized bell ring. These noises would disrupt burial services and deter those wanting peaceful time with their departed loved ones. A large marble mausoleum sits at the Pacific Crest’s east fence, bordering the ROW.
Pacific Crest has expressed grave concern of damage from construction and operation vibrations to its mausoleum.
City of Redondo Beach October 4, 2023
Metro C Line (Green) Extension to Torrance Project Page 5 of 6 d. Residents south of 182nd will be bombarded with train crossings, station noise, and a daily pounding of a freight train roughly 20’ from property lines. Keep in mind that light rail cars would pass about 250+ times per day, 4am to midnight, 365 days a year. But, 182nd serves as a corridor for ambulance service in North Redondo. The DEIR proposed wide trenching as the mitigation to avoid light rail crossings on 182nd, and impediments to emergency vehicles. But the process of constructing the mitigation, itself, as the “Hybrid” ROW Option would result in blockage and other constructive interference on 182nd. This is a large-scale project at an important intersection that would suffer greatly during the multi-year construction process.
e. All Redondo Beach residents further south are subject to an extreme grade separation between the freight line and their property. Single family homes sit 25- 30’ below the berm and the train already looks ominous. Moving the tracks twelve feet closer to their property with no retaining wall will kill property value and quality of life, which would be devastating to these homeowners.
Construction hardships
a. All ROW residents will have to suffer a long drawn out construction phase as they will need to re-route the train line and many of the high-pressure gas lines, regrade all of the ROW (101 dump trucks a day for the first six months), build 4 new bridges (Artesia Blvd., Grant Ave., and Hawthorne Blvd., and 190th St.), and re-tool the entire electrical infrastructure on the ROW. This phased of construction is expected to last 3-4 years before a light rail track is even graded.
The relocation phase will be followed by another 6 years of actual construction of the rail and station structures.
b. There are great risks associated with heavy construction and relocation of highpressure pipelines in soil historically known for movement and sink holes. Those conditions combined with a train that carries liquid petroleum that needs to stay in service as much as possible make for a dangerous, scary combination that cause our residents and Lawndale’s significant anxiety. The recent spate of derailments and even a case of the head-on collision of two BNSF trains makes this option particularly terrifying. There should be no dismissing the potential for a catastrophic incident that will continually cause great stress and anxiety for these residents even after the competition of construction, during normal operations. c. The 182nd area both North (Pacific Crest Cemetery) and South (El Nido Park) have been known burial sites for the past 200+ years. The area was used by Native Americans and early foreign settlers alike. Grading and trenching could easily uncover historically sensitive human remains which could extend project timelines considerably.
d. Lawndale residents recently uncovered the gravestone of a Jewish World War II veteran buried along the ROW in Lawndale. His corps cannot be disturbed City of Redondo Beach October 4, 2023
Metro C Line (Green) Extension to Torrance Project Page 6 of 6 under Jewish law. It is unclear how many more tombs are buried along the ROW, and its unclear how many more are buried there. The DEIR did not adequately address this risk or potential adverse impact.
Please join Lawndale and Redondo Beach’s enthusiasm and excitement for the Hawthorne Elevated alternative of the C-Line Extension. We would be excited to ride this train to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, LAX, Downtown L.A. and beyond. The Hawthorne Elevated routing is the most pragmatic option that enables Metro to fulfill its Vision 2028 statement by “transform[ing] LA County through regional collaboration” and “enhance[ing] communities and lives through mobility and access to opportunity”.
These comments have been reviewed and approved by the Redondo Beach City Council and Mayor by a 4-0 vote. If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Mayor Bill Brand at 310-809-4405 or [email protected].
Thank you for your consideration of our comments.
Sincerely,
Mayor William Brand
Joined by:
Nils Nehrenheim
Council Member, District 1
Todd Loewenstein
Council Member, District 2
Paige Kaluderovic
Council Member, District 3
Zein E. Obagi, Jr.
Council Member, District 4
CC: L.A. County Metro Board
Mike Witzansky, City Manager
Luke Smude, Assistant to the City Manager
Ted Semaan, Public Works Director
L.A. County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell
L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn
Inglewood Mayor James Butts
L.A. City Council President Paul Krekorian