REDONDO BEACH, Calif. — One of the first things you’ll see as you drive south on the Pacific Coast Highway into Redondo Beach is the city’s arch, beckoning visitors to the city’s harbor and pier area.
The second, just above that arch, is a web of power lines stretching from east to west, disappearing up a steep hill and inland. If you follow those lines to the west, toward the coast, they won’t find an ocean, but a smokestack-topped power plant.
“That’s the identity and the brand that people have of our city at times,” said Todd Loewenstein, the Redondo Beach City Council member representing residents in the harbor area. “It’s an anachronism, and if someone had to pick a location to put a power plant, this is probably the worst place.”
Loewenstein is very familiar with that power plant. In 2015, he was part of a coalition to prevent what he believed was irresponsible development at the plant site, which helped boost him into City Hall two years later.
By year’s end, Redondo Beach hopes that it will finally be able to turn out the lights on the AES Redondo Generating Station, which has stood off the water’s edge, intermittently belching black smoke, for more than a century. They just need help from state regulators.
On Sept. 1, the California State Water Resources Control Board will decide whether to adopt an amendment postponing the planned shutdown of four coastal power plants, including the AES Redondo power plant.
The decision may decide the future of the power plant land’s eventual redevelopment. Local leaders and the plant’s new owner have been warring over the size and ownership of a future park and restoration of the area’s natural wetlands.
The final plan, however, must be approved at the ballot box by voters, owing to a quirk of Redondo’s City Charter.
“I’ve been in a situation many times where you’ve got staff coming in with recommendations. We’ve got agencies coming with recommendations, but it’s your decision,” Redondo Beach Mayor Bill Brand told the water board in July. “You don’t just have to follow the recommendations.”
In 2010, the state water board adopted a policy that would eventually require the closure of all coastal power plants that use coastal waters to cool their generators. The final date of operation for many of those power plants, including AES Redondo, was set for Dec. 31, 2020.
In 2019, the Statewide Advisory Committee on Cooling Water Intake Structures determined that those closures may cause power grid shortages. In January, that same committee recommended that the water board postpone the closure of power plants in Alamitos and Ormond Beach for three years, Huntington Beach for two years, and Redondo Beach for one year.
All four plants are considered “peakers,” or contingency plants that operate when the demand for power is high. Since 2016, the four plants have operated at a three-year average of less than 5% of capacity, according to a water board staff report.
In January, the Oxnard City Council approved a deal with GenOn California South, the Ormond Beach plant’s owner: if Oxnard supports a three-year extension, GenOn would pay $25 million to help dismantle the plant and remediate the local environment.
When AES Redondo and the plant’s new owner, land developer Leo Pustilnikov, heard about Oxnard’s deal, he floated a similar proposal. In the process, he withdrew an earlier plan to sell half the land to Redondo. The city said no, wanting the plant closed and hoping to own the property outright for a park.
On July 21, State Sen. Ben Allen and Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi joined Brand in urging the water board to vote against an extension of the Redondo plant.
The people of Redondo Beach, Muratsuchi said, “have been counting on this, they’ve been planning for this plan to shut down. They've been working hard to come up with these plans to build a public park at the power plant, to restore the natural wetlands that exist at this power plant location.”
Allen told the board that he and his constituents would prefer for AES not to be granted its extension, but he suggested that, if an extension must be given, that it be for only one year, and firmly state that no further extensions could be granted.
“If you're going to grant an extension, it would be great to get some intent language in place. That this extension is the final extension, so the city can start making plans to open up this space and make it something that we can all treasure and enjoy as Angelenos and as Californians,” Allen said.
The Heart of the Matter
Redondo’s city leaders and their constituents have been trying to chase out the century-old plant for much of the last 20 years, and for at least the last decade, the power plant’s ownership has tried to oblige them.
If the citizens and various developers or officials could agree on a plan, AES might be gone by now.
In 2004, a plan to redevelop the site with 17 acres of parkland, 450 homes, and two hotels, was killed following an advisory vote of the residents.
That led voters to pass Measure DD in 2008, creating an amendment to Redondo’s City Charter that forces a public vote on all significant land-use zoning changes – like redeveloping a power plant for commercial and residential use.
In 2015, AES proposed a plan including many as 600 total homes and 85,000 square feet of commercial development. Voters defeated that one at the ballot box as well, amid fears of development-borne density and traffic.
AES then put the power plant’s 51 acres of land on the real estate market. No buyers formally stepped up until Leo Pustilnikov came around in October 2018.
Pustilnikov is an L.A.-based developer with ties to projects in Downtown L.A. and Boyle Heights, as well as properties in New York City. He finalized his purchase this spring and initially promised that at least half of the 51-acre site would include a public park and wetland restoration. In his original pitch, Pustilnikov said that he would sell the 25 acres of parkland to the city at below-market value.
Redondo Beach was excited and, feeling there was an agreement in principle, hustled to raise the money. With support from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, Redondo established a fundraising tax district on the land to help pay for infrastructure costs. State-level politicians wrote bill language to help Redondo secure state grants. The city was confident that, when Pustilnikov and AES finalized their agreement, Redondo would be able to put up the money for its park.
But when Pustilnikov was inspired by the deal between Oxnard and the power plant, he came back with a new idea: the longer the power plant stays open, the more AES would pay to remediate the land.
He then put new language before the city: He would no longer sell them the parkland, but if they supported the extension, he would agree to establish 25 acres of privately-owned public open space on the property in a legally-binding covenant.
He saw it as a win-win-win. AES makes money by keeping its plant open, he pays less to remediate the property, the public gets to use the land, and the city doesn’t have to maintain it.
City leaders didn’t budge. They still want to own the parkland, and they still want the plant closed as soon as possible.
Pustilnikov finalized the purchase in March. Communications between elected officials and Pustilnikov have since gone frosty. When asked how his relationship with the city has been since spring, he all but shrugged.
“I don’t think I’ve spoken with the city this year, so the relationship is great,” Pustilnikov said.
His intermediaries, at least, have had some conversation with city staff. City officials have confirmed that Pustilnikov has submitted plans to remodel buildings he purchased in 2019, on the city’s Monstad Pier.
Pustilnikov has kept quiet about his plans for the power plant.
“They’re in no rush, so I’m in no rush on AES,” he said while criticizing the city for slowly reviewing plans for his other properties. He added that the plans have been in flux, especially since the novel coronavirus pandemic took root.
“The priority is getting out of COVID, then figuring out what the world likes in post-COVID, to figure out how office is used, how retail is used, how restaurants are used,” he said. “The only thing that I do think we know for certain is how restaurants are used.”
High-rise developments, he said, are out, office-space is up in the air, and he’s worried about the future of business travel.
“There are a lot of unknowns,” Pustilnikov said.
One of those unknowns is the electorate.
The site is currently zoned for parkland and conditionally allows power generation. Should Pustilnikov’s new plan impose land-use changes, Redondo’s voters would have to approve of the change, which may be his stumbling block. Along with the two previously-mentioned plans to redevelop the plant, voters effectively killed a redevelopment of the city’s harbor and pier area in 2017.
The residents, Councilmember Loewenstein said, are not very enthusiastic for Pustilnikov’s plan to keep the plant around.
“We’re talking about the de-industrialization of the waterfront. It’s huge,” Loewenstein said. “We have the potential to have the largest park in the entire city, and it’d be a regional draw. Think about how many places have this much open space along the coast in Los Angeles, even in Southern California. A power plant just doesn’t fit.”