Group to AES: Tear Down Power Plant

About two dozen people turned out at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Catalina Avenue late Friday afternoon to protest AES's plan to re-power—in essence, rebuild—the .

The protest was a last-minute effort organized by members of Building a Better Redondo (BBR), a controlled-growth group led by Jim Light, and announced Wednesday at a meeting.

BBR aims to place an initiative on the ballot calling for rezoning the AES property into a mixture of parkland and commercial lots. Doing so would add a large park to a "park-poor" city—Redondo Beach has fewer than three acres of parkland per 1,000 people, making it "critically underserved," according to the state of California—as well as raise property values, Light said Wednesday. Additionally, without the initiative and because of zoning laws enacted in November by the passage of Measure G, the would more than likely "rubber stamp" AES's plans for a new plant, Light said.

Right now, the plant only runs 5 percent of the time; however, a new plant would run much more often and require pollution exemptions, Light said at the meeting, which more than 50 people attended.

Jennifer Didlo, a representative of AES, said after the Wednesday meeting that she was happy to see people who were concerned about the plant's future.

"We're interested in working with the city to come up with a balanced plan for the site and having an engaged community will facilitate that," Didlo said.

Nevertheless, Light claimed that AES had rebuffed previous attempts to work with the community and made it clear that residents were gearing up for a fight.

"This is a big battle—one that's been brewing for years," Light said.