No one should underestimate the importance of this. A new PD-6 Downtown Shoreline "Specific Plan" amounts to a mini-Land Use Element change with potentially major impacts for the area south of Ocean Blvd..

"Building a Better Long Beach" Power Point slide

Consider: the changes to the downtown Specific Plan (PD-30) north of Ocean Blvd. are what now enable developers to avoid -- for as long as the next 25-30 years -- density-based public objections and full Environmental Impact Reports for the highest high rises and densest density ever allowed in downtown Long Beach. That outcome began with a 2006 City Hall "visioning process" (steered by developers, city staff and a dozen "visioning" downtown residents including then Council-candidate-in-waiting Robert Garcia.) The result was a template for increased downtown height and density that reached the City Council on Jan. 10, 2012 as a city management proposed revision to PD-30. By that time, Garcia was on the Council, and after more than four hours of polarized discussion, he made the motion (seconded by Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal) to approve the downtown height/density land use changes and programmatic EIR overrides. (The Council vote was 7-2 with Gabelich and Neal dissenting.)

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So when Mayor Garcia indicates a desire to apply the north-of-Ocean Blvd. process to the south-of-Ocean Blvd. area, that's a big deal. "We want to do something similar for our waterfront," Garcia acknowledged to an August 28 audience (a public event he titled "Building A Better Long Beach," attended by multiple development and commercial real estate interests): "We're going to be launching a new visioning process for our waterfront," Garcia said. "The waterfront is critical to connecting the city to our coast and so we have an opportunity to rethink what and how and where things should go in our waterfront."

And Garcia tipped his hand, describing the Convention Center surface parking lot (next to the Arena) as the "single largest parcel of non-developed land that we have in the city and certainly in the downtown." He continued: "Look at the size of it. LA Live could fit on that site. Most stadiums could fit on that site. An enormous amount of commercial or housing opportunities could fit on that site. And so we need, as a community, to begin thinking about what should be on that site...Should it be open space? Should it be developed? How do we connect and do a better job of aligning Shoreline Drive which, for some, is essentially a freeway that disconnects our waterfront to the downtown? So these are the questions that we have to ask ourselves as a community and it should be done in a way that is collaborative and that is thoughtful."

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But the land south of Ocean Blvd. isn't ordinary property. It's state owned Tidelands, land that the state lets the City use "in trust" for state allowed purposes consistent with navigation, fishing, boating, natural habitat protection and other water oriented activities. That makes sense, because priceless publicly-owned shoreline property deserves more thoughtful uses than developable land in Barstow.

But more fundamentally, rethinking LB's shoreline development offers a real opportunity for serious, overdue re-thinking of some previous City of Long Beach shoreline decisions. Not all of them, but in our opinion some of them, have clearly not performed at levels the public was promised.

So...how to fix this?

The first step is to acknowledge there's an issue. Some may have a stake in resisting this, but they need to grasp that it would be unwise to stake LB's future on worn-out defenses for past actions. It's much smarter to face facts without flinching, identify flaws in past reasoning and take actions that can correct this.

Consider the digital photographic work below, painstakingly created by Long Beach resident Dan Gutierrez.

Graphic created by Dan Gutierrez, from SoCal Stair Climbers Facebook page, used with permission.

With the exception of the federal breakwater, every one of shoreline change visible now received City Council approval, and in many if not most cases approval by the State Lands Commission and the state Coastal Commission.

So...which shoreline changes have maximized meeting public desires and proven successful for LB taxpayers? And which ones have focused on satisfying more narrow interests and fallen short of performing at levels publicly promised? And why?

We'll offer our views in upcoming portions of this series. We welcome yours below. Further to follow on LBREPORT.com.

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