San Pedro landslide: Paseo Del Mar rebuild could cost $50M

SAN PEDRO, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A new report from Los Angeles city engineers allows for two options in fixing the portion of Paseo Del Mar that washed away in a landslide last November. One involves spending millions of dollars rebuilding the road, while the other could come at the cost of nature.

The decision to either rebuild the road or make repairs to it will be handed over to the council office, which in turn will consider what residents want done.

But it does not appear that residents will face an easy decision. On the one hand, building a new road over the collapse will be expensive, with costs in the $50 million range. But the more cost-effective option of repairing the existing road would mean rerouting it into a nearby nature preserve. They also say the latter option will be a long process.

To gather residential input, the city will continue to hold meetings about the roadway. During a meeting last week, it appeared citizens were evenly split on the decision.

Some residents said Tuesday rebuilding the road will be money well spent.

"Paseo Del Mar has been here for a long time, a lot of people use it every day, and it's probably one of the best uses of money that you can do in this city," said resident Kevin Faciane.

Others don't want to be taxed for the cost of a new road and are for cutting into the nature preserve.

"There's not much there, we see occasional birds and lizards and bugs but I don't know of any rare species there," said resident John Shanahan.

But the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy says the nature preserve is home to rare species and even more, it's open space -- and you can't put a price tag on that.

"It's a quality of life issue for many residents to have space and to be able to have places to recreate, learn, enjoy and celebrate," said Andrea Vona with the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy.

Paseo Del Mar collapsed in November 2011 due to what was a powerful combination of water and gravity, according to a city study. Geologists say the ground began to shift as early as January 2010 following a smaller landslide on the east side of the road in 2009.

There has been no significant land movement recorded since the landslide in 2011.

Get more Los Angeles News »

rain, storm, los angeles news, darsha philips

• Comment Now
• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•