Recommendation to declare ordinance amending Ordinance No. ORD-21-0020 extending for twelve (12) months interim regulations (moratorium) in accordance with Chapter 21.50 of the Long Beach Municipal Code on the issuance of building, construction, occupancy permits, or other entitlements for new stand-alone residential construction along transportation corridors in areas that are designated by the 2019 General Plan Land Use Element update as the neighborhood-serving corridors or centers placetype on Willow Street, west of the I-710 freeway to the City terminus; and Santa Fe Avenue, between Pacific Coast Highway on the south and Wardlow Road on the north, in the west Long Beach area of the City; declaring the urgency thereof; and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect immediately, read and adopted as read.  (District 7)
Thank you. Hearing 21, please. Yeah. Report from Development Services recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and extend for one year. A previously adopted urgency ordinance relating to the temporary limitation on the issuance of building or construction permits for new residential standalone construction along commercial and transportation corridors in West Long Beach. Read the first time and later the next regular meeting of City Council for final reading and declare the urgency thereof and declaring this ordinance shall take effect immediately and request City Manager to continue working with economic development to develop a plan to conduct a market study along the Santa Fe Avenue and Willow Street Corridor District seven. And there are two votes required for this item. Thank you. City Manager. Yes. I'd like to introduce our acting. Planning manager, Allison Spindler. She will do a presentation. On this item. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. The item before you today is a presentation on the extension of a moratorium for new construction of residential housing units on major corridors in West Long Beach. A bit of background on the moratorium. A year ago, the Council originally enacted a moratorium for new standalone residential development along Willow Street and Santa Fe Ave in West Long Beach. This was because the existing zoning code regulations for the West Willow and Santa Fe corridors predate adoption of the general plan land use element and do not allow for mixed use development. That would be consistent with the adopted land use element, which designates the aforementioned corridors as neighborhoods serving. You can see said corridors on the maps shown in blue. The moratorium was set to expire June 15th and SAFF is recommending that it be extended to allow for the requisite zoning code update and related economic study to be completed . As mentioned, staff is still working on the requisite technical work to ensure new zoning districts not only implement the land development place type guidelines, but also reflect community priorities and are informed by market research on the area. Community outreach to date, including a May 14th Virtual Open House, is being incorporated into the zoning proposal. Moving forward, staff from the Economic Development Department will begin outreach and data collection next month for economic empowerment zones in key areas of the city, including West Palm Beach. The zoning code districts are also being developed with community feedback reflected in the drafts, with the goal of preparing the zones for adoption by the end of the year . Therefore, staff is requesting an extension of the urgency ordinance to ensure the zoning and economic study work is completed. The municipal code requires an urgency ordinance extension to be a full year, but again, it's anticipated the new zones will come back at the end of 22 2022. With that staff request, the one year extension of the moratorium on the issuance of building permits and entitlements for new residential standalone construction and the project area are available to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. That concludes the staff report as any public comment on item 21. There are three public comment speakers Gilbert Oliveira, Robert Bachman and Sand. I can say thank you. Please come forward. What? Robert Bachmann. I'm real. You know, I represent Mr. Real. I'm an attorney. Basically, Mr.. I purchased property back in June of 2020 and waited about six months to start the development process on property in this area. At the time of the first moratorium he firewall he had, it was about six months after he purchased the property . It took him time to develop a plan. And I understand the intent of the what's going on as far as a mixed use and that type of thing. He developed two duplexes and it's about a 6500 square foot property. It was an ugly parking lot and he spent quite a bit of money on the property and obtaining the necessary permits. He was well into the permitting process, including soils and architectural and civil and everything else that had to be done. He was refining his final architectural plans and the first moratorium, which was a year ago. And now we're asking for an extension with the financial situations that are in position. That would be another three quarter percent increase tomorrow in the financing cost through the Federal Reserve. It would be, you know, a great hardship for someone like him. And I don't know how many others there are in this city that had started to develop prior to the first moratorium. And we're not told anything about it. And I just it's it's his position. Well, of course, I believe the moratorium is probably going to pass, but if it could be finished within 90 to 180 days and made sure that it's at the end of the year and no longer than that, I think another year is way too long and the 90 days would even be better because then you've had 15 months and I don't know how long it takes to develop a study like this, but certainly it could have been done, I would think well within a year, which would be right now. So basically that's the situation. And we're asking if rather than getting into an adversarial situation, that the one year extension be reduced to 90 days, 280 days maximum. Thank you. I just want to say that I don't know if there's a theory for all of my fault, but I got mislead by the by the start. When I first look into the property, I was told that the property was on four apartments or a commercial property either way, and that the city wanted maximize units because the city was in need of low income housing or apartment units. So I bought the property under the information that I received from the city. You know, I spent money on blueprints, architectural drawings, soil reports. I, you know, I spent a lot of money on the property and I don't think it's fair for it not is not fair for me because I follow all the guidelines that the city gave me to follow. And I think I should be compensated for all the money that I spent on my property. I even included building permits. I mean, a blank check. You know, I was almost ready to pull the permit when when the moratorium came along. You know. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Speaking as a property owner from the Santa Fe. I'm in the Watson area. Um, what we're finding, what a lot of these zoning, um, projects, uh, whether it's, you know, those new plan, there's, I know there's a zone in one that happened right now in the central area where I live in is there's not enough public, uh , response occurring. Um, you played was pretty good people. It was pretty good. But in other parts of the city, there's literally none zero the public response occurring. You know, you have trusted partners and nonprofits who are engaging as consultants, but little to no community feedback. And I do not think one year is is enough time. I think I think 2 to 3 years is enough time. Um, we're finding that there's a lot of concentration of capital moving into these areas that are major commercial corridor, as if this was not the west side of Long Beach. Uh, this would be a major corridor that has hundreds of millions of capital investment going into it. And I think that a lot of people, both minor, uh, and on the larger end, are very much aware of this. They're very much aware of what the Caltrans and infrastructure projects are looking like on the state side. And they're trying to, uh, catch that, you know, when investing into these areas. I think anyone buying in the COVID period is very clearly aware of that. And it's unfortunate that we don't necessarily have an inclusionary housing element connected to any of these recent developments, which is why the moratorium exists in the first place, to kind of slow down this this rash stampede, you know, all a scramble of Africa or something to invest into these areas right before all the big boys start coming in. So I think and I'm speaking as someone that owns in the area, I think that this should be maintained, it should be pushed further. And we should really involve a conversation about what this small business look like with these types of commercial corridors. How are we protecting them? And what are the the the housing protections really for for low income people? Because people can say that low income is the emphasis of them. But, you know, then if it's a new residential one, it's going to be market rate and market rate, you know, as we know today, is not appropriate to what the average per income of a per capita income is in these zip codes. So I hope that we can extend this further and really slow down over, you know, development of these areas. Uh, because with SB nine, you know, we can't really control what comes into these, into our communities. So thank you. Thank you. I think that concludes public comment. So now we'll take you back behind the wheel. Councilmember Iran activates marin and i want to thank the gentleman who came up in spokane to speak on this item. It's important that we get those perspectives as well in terms of what's going on here with this moratorium. Basically, the moratorium is to look at all the corridor, not just one site or two is to look at the sites from Pacific Coast Highway to Wardlow, from the border to the river. There's a lot of properties there that need to be revisited. The land use element that is currently in place does not address a lot of issues that we have with mixed use. And there are some properties there that are non-conforming that create other types of issues that are not neighborhood saving properties. So I want to ask Steph, excuse me about, you know, how if we can address the gentleman's concerns regarding his current position and the effects of the moratorium, is there something that we can work with him with? Is there something that maybe staff can address or meet with him separately to address those specific issues? Councilmember. I'm glad to exchange information with the attorney for that individual and meet with them this week or next. So we're glad that those discussions I can't commit that we can resolve this issue necessarily, but we're glad to have those further discussions. And then, as Alison explained in her presentation, it's a municipal code reference to a year. But our our expectation and commitment is to have this work done by December 31st. So we'll continue to meet with you and your staff and provide monthly updates to that. And I appreciate that. I think I appreciate staff for having taken this on. It's a very important item for the West Palm Beach area. We need to get some more activity out there. We need to activate those two streets. They are major corridors in West Palm Beach that need to be developed and activated in more of a way to be more neighborhood serving. So I really appreciate the work you've been doing there, and I also appreciate the fact that we're going to be having these community input meetings where we're going to have people come and and address the commission or at least the issues that they feel are important in those two corridors, so that we can come up with a plan that would be amenable not only to those developers or landowners who are interested in developing those properties. But also to the community in regards to what goes on those properties that our community serving, some neighborhood serving I'm sorry. So with that that all my comments of vice mayor. Thank you. That satisfies council comment members. Please cast your vote. Motion is carried eight zero. We do need a second vote for this item. Great. Members, please cast your vote. Motion carries eight zero.