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Council approves study and website to attract development to Wilmington industrial park; residents press for fair access to testing and cleanup
Summary
The council approved a consultant contract to study subsurface conditions, brownfields and development impediments in the Wilmington Industrial Park and to create a centralized website; community members asked that sampling, equity and access concerns be addressed.
The Los Angeles City Council on Dec. 12 approved a contract with a team of consultants to analyze development impediments, including contaminated soils (brownfields), in the Wilmington Industrial Park and to create a centralized information resource and website for prospective developers.
Susan Tataro, project manager for the LA Harbor Industrial Center, described the contract as a package of geotechnical, planning, landscape architecture and real estate services intended to centralize existing data, update soils information where needed and make opportunity-site data accessible to developers. Tataro said the team would not duplicate existing databases but would centralize and update what is available and include targeted soil sampling for particular opportunity sites.
Community speakers raised concerns that small local operators might be disadvantaged by piecemeal sampling and cleanup costs. Councilmember Nate Holden and others asked whether the consultants would sample across the redevelopment area (described in the meeting as roughly 232 acres) and how opportunity sites would be selected. Tataro and other staff said sampling would focus on specific opportunity sites identified by data and planning criteria; past redevelopment agency soils work would be updated as part of the effort. The redevelopment area was stated in the meeting as about "232 acres" and the contract figure was referred to in the discussion in the range of $225,000 for certain sampling and work.
Councilmember Eric Garcetti praised the plan as a potentially transferrable model that would make soils, geological and brownfields data accessible online and reduce the "unknowns" that deter developers. Councilmember Janice Hahn supported the work as a means to attract businesses and jobs to the community.
The council recorded a unanimous roll-call vote (12-0) in favor of the contract award. Recorded votes included Eric Garcetti; Janice Hahn; Nate Holden; Tom LaBonge; Cindy Miscikowski; Nick Pacheco; Janice Perry; Ed Reyes; Mark Ridley-Thomas; Jack Weiss; Deniz Zine; and Alex Padilla.
