By Max Rosenberg
Staff Writer
The Manhattan Beach City Council and planning commissioners met for a joint meeting on April 12 and city council met again on April 18 to discuss changes on the Downtown Specific Plan, a draft they created in Jan. 2015 which lays out the plans for improving Downtown Manhattan Beach in the following decades.
For the past sixteen months, the planning commission and city council have been working on the plan separately at various meetings. The April 12 meeting was focused on issues such as parking, building height, and returning the “small town” feeling to Manhattan Beach, Community Development Director Marisa Lundstedt said.
“About two years ago, people were getting concerned that a lot of small businesses were leaving the downtown area because of high rents,” Manhattan Beach Planning Commission President Nancy Hersman said. “The reason we had a joint meeting was because we are on a tight timeline and there are a lot of issues such as these rents to discuss.”
According to Hersman, the Specific Plan focuses on the downtown area only, and is separate from the General Plan, which applies to the entire City. The Specific Plan will apply to the northern border of 15th Street, Ardmore on the eastern border, and a jagged southern border reaching 8th Street.
“The City has a General Plan for the entire City,” said Hersman. “Of course, cities can have specific plans for very focused areas within the City, but the specific plan has to also meet whatever is set out in the General Plan.”
The meeting began with the reading of the updated draft of the plan. Residents, Manhattan Beach city council members, and planning commissioners who attended the meeting were then encouraged to voice their opinions on the plan.
“The council and the city commissioners are having meetings to make decisions, but communication between the two is very important,” City Council Member Amy Howorth said. “We came together because if city council doesn’t have the same information as the planning commission, we may go in a completely different direction.”
The city council held a short follow-up meeting on April 18 to discuss major aspects such as a 1600 square foot cap on retail buildings and methods to decrease trash in the downtown area.
“Once we make our recommendations for the second draft, the specific plan will go to city council for final input.” Hersman said.
Using the discussed information from the meeting, the city staff will make a second draft of the plan, which will go back to the planning commissioners for further revisions. The planning commission will then have a public hearing in June where citizens can give any additional input before city council votes on the final plan. According to Howorth, city council hopes to approve and implement the plan by July before the ban on business changes is lifted.
“It’s really important for council and staff to get as much public input as possible because the residents need to be happy with the town that they live in,” Howorth said.
Leave a Reply