Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and adopt resolution certifying EIR 04-15, making findings of fact, adopting a statement of overriding considerations and approving a Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program for the Midtown Specific Plan (State Clearinghouse No. 2015031034);
Okay. Thank you and congratulations. Okay. Now, believe it or not, because it's one of those nights on the agenda, we actually have a couple of hearings. And so let's go on to. The first hearing. And initially I was told by staff that the first hearing was going to be 30 minutes long. So I think we've condensed the 5 minutes, I hope, or 5 to 10 minutes. If I can have the clerk, please read the hearing. Hearing. One is a report from Development Services recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing and adopt resolution certifying EIA zero four Dash 15. Making findings of fact adopting a statement of overriding considerations and approving a mitigation, monitoring and reporting program for the Midtown Specific Plan. Adopt Resolution Establishing the Midtown Specific Plan Declare on ends amending the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to the Midtown Specific Plan. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for final reading and declaring amending the Land Use District Map to reflect the establishment of the Midtown specific plan. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading District one and six. Thank you. I don't believe an oath is required for this, so I'm going to turn this over to staff. This will require four separate votes to sort. To on each of the one on each of the two resolutions and one on each of the two ordinances. And it does require an oath. Okay. But this isn't. You're not. We're not you're not combining. You're not combining the other hearings on this one. It's just this is still just hearing one, correct? Correct. Okay, great. So I'll turn this over to Mr. West. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. MEMBERS. Mr.. The Council. The presentation will be given by Amy Burdick, or Director of Development Services. Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council. I am happy to make it a five minute presentation for you. This is the Midtown specific plan. And. I want to first introduce to you Christopher Coons, who's our advance planning officer who has been working on this project with us for the past year. This project essentially replaces PD 29, the Long Beach Boulevard Corridor zoning, with a new specific plan and a brand new program year. It allows us to modernize the zoning and land use intentions for the Long Beach Boulevard corridor, essentially from Anaheim to the four or five freeway. It's a mix of single family residential uses, underperforming commercial uses, an existing medical campus at Memorial as well as Miller Children's, some public facilities. Clearly, the light rail is both a barrier and an opportunity and it suffers from quite a bit of public lack of public investment. Some of the existing pictures that really reflect the condition of the environment. So this is a specific plan which is very different from the more generalized zoning. It is much more detailed and provides a lot more guiding vision and details on what our expectations are. It does provide also greater clarity in what our development expectations are and then also the the uses that will be allowed under the specific plan. This is our first specific plan in Long Beach. The downtown plan is a quasi specific plan, but it will be more like the downtown plan than any of our existing zoning documents. So the specific plan boundaries will essentially mimic the PD 29 corridor. Again, it focuses on land uses along the light rail and it's big issues are stimulating new investment, reducing auto dependent dependency, improving pedestrian and bike safety, promoting sustainable building and active living, streamlining the development approvals for future projects and leveraging existing medical uses to create additional employment opportunities. What this specific plan really does is it focuses our major development areas along those nodes where the Metro Blue Line is and where we want to see mixed use projects with additional density there. So we'd like to get away from the single story strip center commercial uses and focus more on the mixed use developments that you've seen sporadically over the last few years. This did require us to circulate a program earlier, and the program earlier does require you to adopt a statement of overriding considerations. There are three categories where we've done the environmental review under Sequa and have determined that we cannot mitigate to a level less than significant. And those are in the area of air quality greenhouse gas emissions and noise, although noise is temporary during construction activities. Because of that, we do ask that you make findings that the adoption of this plan is far more beneficial than any potential impacts that could be caused by future development activities. Without that, concludes my staff report. Thank you. I'm just going to have you cover one more thing. I think it's the most interesting part. I know this isn't always the sexiest item, but this planning stuff is great. If you can just cover the land use districts real quick and then mature and over to Councilman Andrews. Certainly we do have we have decided I shouldn't say we decided we have created five different land use districts in this plan. The nodes are fairly self-explanatory and that they are where the blue line intersects with the major cross streets of Anaheim, PCH, Willow and Wardlow. We also have the medical campus, which is around the Long Beach Memorial Medical Center in Miller Children's Family. We also have the Open Space District, which will include Veterans Park and then any other open space assets that we're able to develop. And then we have the Corridors District, which essentially reflects the zoning between the two transit, the transit nodes. Great. Thank you. Appreciate that. I'm going to turn this verse over if there's any public comment on. The hearing. Seeing no public comment. I'm hearing I'm going to turn this now over to Councilmember Andrus. Thank you, Mayor. I think if anyone have had a chance to go up and down a long ways to provide, you've seen that this will be a project that when you say the mayor says it is a big deal, this is a big deal, a long time coming. But like I said, this will be something I think everyone will be able to appreciate. And I'm so happy to see that this plan is finally come to the council. After many community meetings and hard work from the Staff and Planning Commission. We're here today to move forward on the plan to help support Long Beach Boulevard for future growth. We will no longer see uses that do not support a healthy growth, neighborhood and economy. It will create more amenities along the corridor and attract and restrain business and develop that will create more jobs. I am especially interested and interested in our economic development department to promote this corridor. That is the bookmark by Saint Mary's Hospital for the medical industry. From the doctors offices to the biotech business park to medical devices. Language Boulevard should be the home to innovative companies, and I'd like to have my colleagues move. Move this forward. Please move to approve. Thank you. There's a there is a motion and a second Councilwoman Gonzales comments. Yes. And I actually have a couple questions. And I want to thank you for this report. It's really great to see finally midtown moving forward. And it's it's just very exciting. I have a couple questions as to the elements within the the proposed plan. So I, I was looking through this and I noticed minor auto repair. And so what would that be defined as? Because we do have an inundation of auto repair along Long Beach Boulevard. Right. So minor auto repair would be a break, break replacement or window shield replacement, things like that. It would be not engines, transmissions, auto body work. Those are considered major auto body. Okay, perfect. I also saw in there amusement machines with those be like slot machine type. They're like arcade pinball, the old pinball machines. I was like, I don't know what that is, but I'll, I'll ask you anything. And then massage therapy, I believe, is is that does that have to go through a a process before or is it. I was no. So massage if it is related to an existing use like a salon, I believe it is considered approved. And then there's also been recent court cases, I believe Mr. City Attorney on the use of massage where we don't have the ability to regulate them like we used to. Oh, to which type of massage? A standalone massage. Yeah. Okay. Okay, great. And then drive thrus. I didn't notice them in here, but I wanted to ask about that as well. If they're not in here, in, Christopher will look it up quickly. For me, we do require copies for drive thrus under Title 21, so we were either more restrictive in here or we referred to Title 21. Okay, great. And we actually prohibit drive thrus outright in PD, excuse me, in the new specific plan. Okay, great. Thank you. And then I would just say I'm glad that we're looking at Metro as kind of the core to this area, especially when it comes to upgrades for ADA compliance as well as just safety. And hopefully I know we've talked in the past about with Metro and the county about turnstiles being added and I don't know if that's still a conversation that is alive, but it would be great to continue that because, you know, we're just getting an influx of issues that arise from from the metro and and people coming in and out without paying. Right. Understood. Yeah. Okay, great. And then I think that is about it. But I just want to thank you. I think adding more safety, certainly more ADA compliance, lighting, all of that, and ensuring that we're getting the right businesses in is really important. So I really appreciate it and thank you very much. Thank you. We're going to go and go to a vote. I just wanted to just add a couple comments, and that is that I believe that this is the first I planned planning major planning document that we've done since the downtown plan. Is that correct, Ms.. Potok? Yes, sir, that is correct. And it is our first specific plan in the city. And so I just don't want to. Yeah, I know it's easy to to to gloss over, but these plans take an incredible amount of work. I mean, they're multi-year planning documents. The staff works incredibly hard on these plans. The community works incredibly hard on these plans. There's numerous outreach meetings that have happened and that have happened all throughout the Long Beach Boulevard corridor in both district districts one and District six. And so I just want to thank the staff for that. But I also these these planning documents guide the future of development for an entire area. The downtown plan had a huge impact on the development of downtown enormous overnight. I mean, the the Molina project was completely done because of the downtown plan from from one day to the next. And so the changes that are in this plan, the kind of the focus on livability and the on transit and the housing nodes, I all think bode very well for the future of Long Beach Boulevard. Staff hears me complain about one beach boulevard all the time as it weekly pad. Okay. Weekly. It's weekly. It's the main it's it's one of the main entry points from Los Angeles, people that come in and out of the train as a regular writer of the train. I want those folks coming into our city to have a good experience all the way down on Beach Boulevard. And right now, that's not the case. So we're trying we're trying new approaches. And I'm really happy with this plan. So I want to thank staff for working so hard on it. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate your comments about the relevance of planning. I just wanted to say, I think planning is very sexy. So we live and breathe that every single day, right, Mr. Eric? Yes, ma'am. There we go. I'm embarrassed. I'm blushing. Okay, so we have a motion in a second. Members, please go out and cast your votes. Now. There's four votes. We're taking on this one item. Correct. So let's cast your first vote. Mr. Mayor. Man Voice I think my machine is rebooting. Okay, my comments. We're rebooting. All those. All those in favor say I. Any opposed? Abstentions. Okay. Motion carries unanimously the second vote. Mr.. Mr.. City Attorney, can I get, can I get a motion in a second on the second part of this?