UPDATE 11:00pm | The Long Beach City Council heard from more than 20 public speakers during a special session that lasted nearly three hours on Tuesday, ultimately deciding to receive the Environmental Impact Report on the Downtown Community Plan, but also extended the public comment period from the normal 60 days to 115 days.
The extension was made to allow local group Housing Long Beach to complete a study of their own. Public comments on the Downtown Community Plan will now be allowed until mid-March, so findings of the Housing Long Beach study will be finished and included moving forward.
The Downtown Community Plan is an effort to redevelop a one square-mile area of downtown Long Beach with massive residential, office and commercial space over the next 25 years. The plan has been under development since 2007.
But advocates like Housing Long Beach publicly worried that the plan will ultimately raise rents and force current residents out of their homes. Their study will examine the project’s future effect on downtown housing and employment markets. They had asked for the project EIR to be delayed about three months while the study is completed, but proponents said such a move would cost the city money and spook developers from investing in the city. The Council compromised by voting not to delay, but to extend the comment period to include the housing study.
A coalition of proponents for the plan included local lobbyist Mike Murchison, DLBA Board President John Sangmeister, DLBA President Kraig Kojian, Chamber Chairman Jim Eaton, Chamber President/CEO Randy Gordon, as well as some community residents. They argued that the project had been studied and planned long enough and further delays could jeopardize the project. They advised the Council not to wilt to the whims of “special interests.” That strategy turned on them when opponents of the plan embraced the term.
“I’m a special interest,” stated several public speakers, many of them downtown residents, when they addressed the Council with their concerns. Gerrie Schipske, 5th District Councilmember, pointed out hypocrisy in developers and lobbyists using the term “special interests” to describe community residents.
Councilmembers representing the downtown – Robert Garcia and Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal – supported approval of the project, but others were wary.
“We’re a cheap date, and we’ve always been a cheap date,” said Schipske, “and that’s been part of the problem in Long Beach.”
Empty downtown storefronts and underwhelming public response to the massive Pike center may have also soured councilmembers on buying into a long-term commitment.
Councilmember Rae Gabelich questioned Garcia and Lowenthal in particular for being advocates of creating new parking downtown, but supporting the Downtown Community Plan and its intention to reduce parking in the area.
“I’m not ready to adopt a plan that doesn’t address the needs of today as well as the needs of tomorrow,” she said.
Long Beach Redevelopment director Amy Bodek replied that the proposed parking reduction is “moderate,” and that more detailed information on parking will be available when the EIR is released. Other councilmembers wondered about traffic effects caused by such a large development. Vice Mayor Lowenthal, however, said that some of the concerns were unwarranted.
“This fear of mass [resident] displacement I believe is actually misdirected,” she said, noting that the city loses all eminent domain powers in the next month. “Development is not anti-resident. Development is not anti-community.”
After more than an hour of discussion, Lowenthal moved – “That would be most welcome,” quipped Mayor Bob Foster – to receive the EIR around December 1 but extend the public comment from 60 to 90 days. A substitute motion aimed to delay the EIR release until February 15, but a substitute substitute motion intended to release the EIR but extend public comment to 100 days. Councilmember Steven Neal eventually asked to add 15 more days to that extension, and the motion passed unanimously.
*
10:50am | The Long Beach City Council will hold a special meeting today at 3:30pm to decide whether or not to delay the release of a downtown development plan.
The Downtown Community Plan is ready to be released and aims to develop a one square-mile area of downtown Long Beach, increasing density with more than 9,000 new residential units and massive office, retail and hotel accommodation expansions.
Some housing advocates, however, are asking for more time. They would like the release of the Downtown Community Plan to be delayed so that their own study can be completed around February and included in the consideration. They argue that the plan will gentrify the neighborhoods and force residents currently living there to leave the area when rents begin to rise. Advocates estimate that 24,000 residents will be displaced by the plan.
And after four years to develop the Downtown Community Plan, a long-term project that will take 25 years to fully implement, supporters are unwilling to wait three more months for opposing views.
That’s because the plan will basically have a green light to move forward by streamlining approvals and removing some environmental restrictions. And supporters want to get started as soon as possible.
The Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Long Beach Associates (DLBA) are opening calling for support of the plan to move forward immediately. The Chamber has launched a letter-writing campaign at SupportDowntownLB.com and the DLBA last week voted 4-0 to support moving forward with the plan. An editorial in the Press-Telegram today supported the project’s immediate release.
“I want to applaud the City’s thoughtfulness in this process,” said DLBA Board Chair, John Sangmeister in a recent press release. “This has been a four-year legacy, a comprehensive study that has involved hundreds of meetings, remarkable outreach, and I think it can be correctly addressed as a grassroots project—residents, business owners, designers, and the City have all participated in this for the good of the community and to delay this any further would be a travesty.”
But doing so will likely shut out the housing advocates’ study, which may not be completed within the 30-day window for public comment if the plan is released soon.
A future vision with sparkling new residential, commercial, office and hotel development initially sounds like exactly the ticket that downtown Long Beach needs. But the current state of the area may provide important perspective before approving plans for the future. These same arguments were also made for fast-tracking the Pike about ten years ago, and that project has not yet reached its promising potential. Popular downtown areas such as Pine Avenue have also recently lost marquee businesses and empty storefronts are prevalent.
The City Council today will make important decisions that will change downtown Long Beach, and they should consider the outcomes of promises made in the past before making a 25-year commitment.
Click here to read our policy on covering the Long Beach City Council.
Disclosure: Long Beach Post publisher Shaun Lumachi is a government affairs advisor to the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.