After a few weeks off, the Long Beach City Council has a very busy meeting on Tuesday. Read on for what you need to know.
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City news
As a follow-up to a story we covered last fall, we wanted to share an update.
Two environmentalist groups announced Thursday that they reached a settlement with a developer behind a self-storage and RV facility at 3701 Pacific Place — a parcel of prominent land sandwiched between the Los Angeles River and Los Cerritos Park. The two groups, Los Angeles Waterkeeper and Riverpark Coalition, sued to block the 14-acre development in September, arguing the city eschewed the necessary environmental studies to ensure it wouldn’t damage the health of the surrounding habitat.
The project is a three-story self-storage warehouse, RV parking and car wash facility on land once used as a 12-derrick oil field and a brine treatment facility — afterwards as a golf range until 2007 — that is now a blighted industrial site with abandoned cars, contaminated soil and encampments.
Environmentalists maintain that the land serves as a necessary floodplain, meant to absorb groundwater during the rainy winter months. The two groups have opposed the project since 2020, asking the city to instead make it a park.
A spokesperson for one group, Los Angeles Waterkeeper, said Friday that with the agreement comes with several concessions by the developer, including the promise to build out publicly accessible parkland on a parcel next to the site, as well as expanding a green buffer area onsite and adding a 15-foot-wide public trail easement on the north side of the project that would link to the LA River and existing equestrian trails.
Details on the changes, he said, are still being ironed out, and it’s unclear when they will be made public.
Developers previously agreed to maintain a half-acre native plant preserve in the north section of the site. They also agreed to pave a trailhead through its southern half that connects the Los Cerritos neighborhood to the LA River bike path.
City meetings
The Long Beach City Council is back this week with a stacked agenda. We’re not able to hit every item and will need to follow up with some more coverage throughout the week. But here are some of the main ones you should know about:
- Following several traffic studies, the city on Tuesday will bring forward an ordinance to increase speed limits from 25 mph to between 30 and 45 mph across 24 different arterial roads, including sections of Alamitos Avenue, Anaheim Street, Artesia Boulevard, Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach Boulevard and Ocean Boulevard, among others. Another section will decrease speeds and a third part will establish a new 25 mph limit near playgrounds.
- A trio of council members in downtown, West and North Long Beach are asking the city to run a feasibility study on the cost of creating or expanding violence intervention and prevention programs, arguing that while violent crime has declined, other issues still persist. The city’s index for quality of life — especially among youth — is below the county average, with exceedingly poor scores in neighborhoods around the seaport and along the city’s western side.
- As its aging, in-house equipment has caused hundreds of billing errors and wrongful shutoffs, the city is requesting the City Council consider an ordinance that would outsource utility bill printing and mailing away from its own operation to an Anaheim company that already handles its digital bill distribution.
- There will be a first reading of an ordinance at Tuesday’s City Council meeting that, if approved, would push forward council meeting start times to 4:30 p.m., restructure the meeting’s agenda order, place a 30-minute cap on general public comment and change rules on decorum to prohibit behavior that “disrupts the meeting,” among other changes.
- After years of planning, the city is ready to move forward with a $22 million contract to begin construction on the Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway, a 2.66-mile stretch of bike lanes, 15 new or relocated bus stops, 10 upgraded crosswalks with flashing beacons and five fully protected intersections, as well as various repairs and drainage improvements. With approval on Tuesday, construction should start in the fall and finish by 2028.
- Two tourism-related items. First, the city is asking for approval on a $4.6 million contract with Meet Long Beach to expand its responsibilities in marketing the city for conventions, tourism, sports and entertainment. (If you’re wondering who Meet Long Beach is, you can read about their relatively recent creation here.) The city says Meet Long Beach, and its counterpart Visit Long Beach, met their hotel room sales goals in FY 2024-2025 and helped book more than 202,000 room nights. Secondly, the city wants the OK for a $187,450 contract with a Cleveland-based firm to create an advertising program on city property, to generate revenue.
ICYMI — California and national news
- State law will put more housing near transit stops. This SoCal map finally shows where (LAist)
- More airlines suspend LAX routes due to high fuel costs (L.A. Times)
- A California housing bill would raise wages to $28. Why do some unions hate it? (CalMatters)