San Pedro’s long-debated Ponte Vista housing development, a project once so despised that it looked like it might never be built, received a unanimous thumbs-up Tuesday from the Los Angeles City Council.

After earlier approvals by city planners, there was little suspense left when the scaled-down proposal finally came before the council. Preparation work now is set to begin on the sprawling 61.5-acre site, which will accommodate up to 700 new homes.

The subject of community debate, petitions and pickets for nearly a decade, the Ponte Vista plan was whittled down to the point that it finally passed the city’s scrutiny, bringing to an end one of San Pedro’s most contentious development debates in years.

“It’s long overdue,” Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino said after the 13-0 council vote. “We’ve waited for this moment for a long time.”

A demolition permit for developers is expected to be in hand by April or May to remove more than 500 aging and long-vacant Navy homes that remain on the long-abandoned property. The homes were built before 1965 and might also need asbestos-removal work.

The new homes for Ponte Vista — a mix of for-sale single-family houses with town houses and single-level flats — will be built in phases, probably beginning sometime in late 2015, a spokesman for the developer said. The project is expected to be completed in five to seven years.

The project approved Tuesday is “a fraction” of what the original plans called for under the original developer, Bob Bisno, who first proposed 2,300 homes in 2005.

Several iterations of the plan that called for fewer home numbers were floated and ultimately rejected over the years following that original roll-out that drew such a community outcry.

While many residents and business interests have supported the proposal all along, saying new housing stock is needed in the area, others remained opposed even with the final numbers approved Tuesday.

Concerns remain about how the project will affect traffic on Western Avenue. Other objections have been lodged about the existence of hazardous materials operations, including the Rancho LPG Holdings tank on North Gaffey Street.

Members of the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council took the lead in challenging the project, oftentimes winning concessions that led to the current version.

After nearly four years of negotiations with the council office and neighborhood councils, the current developer, iStar Financial, managed to come up with a downsized plan that went even lower than the limits of 775 to 886 homes set by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission in 2008.

The iStar plan calls for 676 homes with a cap of 700 units.

Among the other developer concessions are:

• A permanent access road running from Western Avenue to Mary Star of the Sea High School to the east (though it may experience temporary closures during construction).

• A project labor agreement with the Building Trades Council and a program through the city’s WorkSource Center and PV Jobs for streetscape improvements to Western Avenue.

• A 2.4-acre park along Western Avenue that will be open to the public, to be designed, constructed and maintained by the developer.

Residents already have noticed many of the property’s existing trees have been topped off in recent weeks, work that was required of the developer by March 31 as part of a mitigation measure to make sure no bats were found in the palm frons specifically (none was).

All of the parcel’s 318 existing trees, none of which is environmentally protected, will be removed. In exchange, the new project will feature 3,500 trees that will be planted, developers said.

Among the first amenities to open could be the new public park on Western Avenue and a perimeter walking path that will circle the entire property.

“They’re going to be working on the park early on,” said Eric Shabsis, a spokesman for the project.

A news release from the developer said the site will be transformed into “a vibrant, high-quality lifestyle community” that will feature hiking and bicycle trails “and a green canopy of over 3,000 new trees.” The development also will include environmental elements such as water conservation features, rainwater catchment systems, drought-tolerant landscaping and shade trees to promote energy conservation.

“I want to thank all the stakeholders and community leaders,” Buscaino said, referring to the countless revisions and community meetings held over the years. “And I also want to thank the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council for making this a better project.”