San Pedro First?

Bob's new plan calls for the creating a "San Pedro First" scenario where folks from San Pedro will get first crack at new housing at Ponte Vista and may even get a 5% discount on their purchase price.

Unfortunately Bob seems to think that San Pedro also includes Wilmington, Harbor City, and Harbor Gateway, all three other areas withing Janice Hahn's district.

Bob leaves out one of his lobbyist's city of Lomita where Mark Waronek is the Mayor. Of course he also leaves out Rancho Palos Verdes folks because he probably feels those residents are "ranting elitists" anyway.

So in Bob's "San Pedro First" program, he is including other areas.

Let's say Bob gets to build a bunch of condos. He has stated that the first 100 units, whether they are in the Senior Housing Section and/or the non-age restricted section, will be reserved for folks who qualify to be in the "San Pedro First" category, which includes three more areas.

O.K. A bunch of folks want to sell the homes they are living in and buy at Ponte Vista, all at about the same time. What might happen to the value of the homes they are trying to sell if a whole bunch of units go onto the market at the same time.

Those folks will also have their homes competing in the sales arena with units being built at Ponte Vista, too, I would imagine.

Who is going to buy all the units being sold by folks trying to buy units at Ponte Vista? Might they get a better deal in buying their home because the owners want to sell quickly to get into Ponte Vista?

What happens to all the other folks who will have their homes up for sale in the San Pedro and other three areas, and are not trying to buy anything at Ponte Vista. Will the market prices be artificially depressed because of Bob's offer? It that fair to the rest of the San Pedro community members who will be trying to sell their homes at the same time.

Bob has stated that if the first 100 units are sold to San Pedrans (and from folks in the other three areas), he will put into reserve another 100 units for those qualifying folks.

Wouldn't that whole process put a damper on real estates sales and Realtors who are trying to market homes of folks who won't want to move into Ponte Vista.

It seems to me, and I am not very knowledgeable about real estate practices, that if a developer singles out groups of folks he his trying to get to buy his product by offering reserved units and money-saving schemes, it might depress the prices of homes not included in the scheme.

Does that sound like a developer who claims to know San Pedro, or care about the real estate market on the whole in our area.

If real estate folks are not going to be marketing units at Ponte Vista, might they be left out of the loop and have to watch the homes they are representing having to have their prices lowered because of what Bob wants to do?

Let's say Mr. and Mrs X want a senior unit at Ponte Vista. The home they have been living in for 30+ years is paid for and they can take their Prop 13 savings with them because of the grandfather clause they can have. They will have plenty of money to pay cash for their new unit at Ponte Vista because of the profit they will make when their house sales. Might Mr. and Mrs X want to lower the price of the home they are living in, just to get into Ponte Vista as one of the first 100 buyers? They will probably qualify for the 5% discount on the new unit, so there is an incentive to sell their old home quickly so they can move in sooner.

What might that do to the prices of the homes that are for sale in the neighborhood that Mr. and Mrs. X are abandoning? Mr. and Mrs. X get a new home, a discount on that home, a quicker sale on their older home because they can discount it for a faster sale. What does that say about the rest of the market?

This is all perfectly legal, what Bob is proposing to do, but is it right for the rest of the community? Real Estate agents might have to take less money because of the lowered sale prices on all the units in the area. Sellers who aren't going to move into Ponte Vista will see their income or profit drop because they will have to lower their price to compete with Mr. and Mrs. X.

Unless somebody can explain this differently, I think this plan might cause more pain to more folks in San Pedro and the three other areas, who will be trying to sell their homes, but not move into Ponte Vista.

One set of winners in this scenario, will be the folks selling units at Ponte Vista. The folks who leave their SFR and never had to pay association dues, homeowner fees, and maintenance fees will probably get a bit of a shock when those monthly bills come in, while living in a condominium community.

There may be some winners in the "back fill" area. Those are the folks buying the homes folks sell to move into Ponte Vista. Those buyers will probably have more leverage in having the price lowered because the sellers want to move into Ponte Vista sooner and may lower their price, even more.

Does Bob Bisno really care about San Pedro. He seems to care about the folks who will buy into his development and can't seem to bother with the rest.

Oh, and another thing. Bob stated and listed the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council as a supporter of his plans. They have not as yet endorsed Bob's plans, no matter what their President says. I have the documentation, the declaration from the chair of the Land use and Planning Committee, and a certain Vice President's acknowledgement that CSPNC did NOT endorse Ponte Vista.

We are still waiting for Bob's promise of supplying the breakdown as to the number of each type of unit he planned and plans on building, whether it was for the 2,300-unit project, or the 1,950-unit project. He wrote that the breakdown was being reviewed, but he has not published those breakdown(s) he promised in his development's newsletter.

Local residents who buy into Ponte Vista, first. Everyone else, he simply doesn't care about, it seems.